Tim Holman's motivated to help St Pat's be a success in Peter McDonald Premiership

The Saints finished that Group 10 campaign in eighth on the ladder with four wins from 16 games and Holman then stepped away from league.

But leaving the sport like that just didn't sit right the man who spent time with the Newcastle Knights and won a premiership with the Saints in 2008.

So this season Holman is back with St Pat's and fully committed to bringing his best football in search of more premiership glory.

"The last couple of years when I first came back [to Bathurst] I had a lot on my plate, so footy was sort of secondary to everything else going on," the halfback revealed.

"So I didn't really commit and didn't really enjoy my last couple of years playing footy. Over the last few years that sort of bugged me, I didn't want my last game of footy to be going out on that note.

"It irked me that they didn't get value for money those last two years out of me, it just sit right with me. I was in that mindset where footy was secondary and I didn't care if we won or lost or how we went and that's never how I've been.

"So one of the main motivators for me coming back this year was to do it properly and give it a good shot and whatever happens happens, but at least I know I've committed for the full year."

While Holman was not happy with how he'd left the Saints, his path back to the club began with a joke over a beer with Hayden Ward.

"He [Ward] dropped the idea to me but it was after a few beers and I just brushed it off, but then Zac [Merritt] got in contact with me and the momentum kept growing and growing and the next thing I know I'm at Jack Arrow Oval in the pre-season thinking 'What the hell am I doing here again?'," he laughed.

"I was working and parenting and I sort of didn't have anything to connect me socially to anyone, so I thought I'd have run around and get back amongst the club and have that social aspect of my life again."

Holman put plenty into his first four weeks of pre-season training with the Saints, but then a calf strain kept him out of their trial matches and he missed some ball work too.

So for his return match, which came against the Parkes Spacemen in Parkes, Holman found himself in the unusual position of playing on the wing.

"It was three years since I'd made a tackle or done anything so I was really looking forward to a trial to dip the toes in the water, but that didn't happen. That's where the wing experiment came from in the first round," Holman said.

"It's a bit hard to learn a new position at 35, especially because winger is sort of a young man's game."

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The following week against Dubbo CYMS Holman was back in the number seven jumper, but it was only last Sunday when the Saints lined up against Mudgee that the halfback felt comfortable.

"A few cobwebs have been blown out and being back on the left last weekend was good. I've played my whole life on the left, but when I came back I said 'I 'll do what you want'," Holman said.

"Fitzy [Blake Fitzpatrick, five-eighth] wanted to play on the left so I played on the right, but when you've spent your whole life doing things one way, you step off your right foot, palm with your right hand, it was like doing everything in reverse and it felt so foreign."

Another change for Holman this year is not being familiar with his opponents. In part it is due to the formation of the Peter McDonald Premiership - a competition that combined Group 10 and Group 11 clubs - but it has more to do with Holman's absence from the sport.

"It's not a challenge, but it's definitely something that's been new for me this year, every side I've come up against, because it's been a fair while since I've played them, it's like a new team," he said.

"Back five-six years ago when I was playing you'd go in knowing what to expect, who were their key players and how they play, but now it's like a whole new changing of the guard, so I go in blind every week.

"Yeah I'm probably less targeted, it's probably more about the grey hair now. I've had few people yell out 'Run at the grey-haired bloke'," he added with a laugh.

Holman takes the jibes about his hair in good humour - for him it's just part of competing.

It's a contest which he again has a passion for and he's enjoying the new dimension of Group 10 clubs competing against Group 11 sides for a premiership.

"I'm really enjoying it," he said.

"Group 10 and Group 11, they've played around with it for awhile now, they had a pre-season thing where we played Group 11, then they had the premiership winners play, but when there are no premiership points on the line and you play before or after a season, there's not really that many bragging rights.

"Now that there's competition points on the line, I think everyone will be keen to see who comes out on top. You've got proper bragging rights then."

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This Sunday the mission for the Saints to is claim bragging rights over the Orange Hawks.

It might be a new-look rival for Holman, but he knows all about trying to bring the Hawks down at Wade Park.

He knows the Saints will need to execute much better than they did when suffering a 12-8 loss to Mudgee last Sunday.

"I think every single one of us after the game, when we were sitting in the club having a beer, we looked at other and were like 'How did we lose that?'," he said.

"It just felt like we were in the game the whole time and it was a matter of time until we cracked them, but every time we got our chance we just dropped it or passed it to the ground."

Still, Holman think that his Saints can beat Hawks, leapfrog them on the ladder and be a real contender in the new premiership if they can play their best football.

"I think this team can really give it a shake if we can play our best footy, so hopefully from now on we can start clicking," he said.

Sunday's match against Orange Hawks will kick off at 2.45pm at Wade Park.

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