Junee Diesels President David Holt spoke highly of the weekend which saw old foes the Diesels come up against returning Group 9 side the Coota Bulldogs in memory or Terry Douglas, who played for both clubs.
David said, “The LeagueTag girls came up with a victory in the end. They played a pretty solid game and the women’s RL Junee girls, all their training that they’ve done, all paid off and they came up with a pretty solid win against Young which was good to see.”
“Young were a little bit short in numbers, I think we lent them a couple of players but it was a good showing.”
“The 18s got off to a pretty solid start, but Cootamundra made a few changes and ended up getting over the top of them. Our blokes will go a long way this season, they are a good team. They’ll learn a lot out of that game on the weekend.”
The Reserve Grade fixture was played in Terry’s memory as he was the captain of the side when they last won a premiership. And the Diesels claimed the win.
“The Reggies game was a pretty hard for battle from both sides. Our boys came up victors.”
David said, “It was more orientated around Reserve Grade because in 2022 Terry was our Reserve Grade captain and in 23.”
“In 22 we won the premiership and he led from the front the whole way through that year and it was just a solid performance and that’s pretty much where the connection with the Reserve Grade game is. He was always in the forwards, usually prop but occasionally second row.”
Coota were a little too strong for the Diesels in the First Grade game, but the diesels will be boosted by players yet to arrive.
“The difference between the two sides was Cootas got a couple of big forwards there that just played the whole match and dominated and they caused carnage up the middle.”
“It’s onward and upward. Like I said about the 18s boys, First Grade are the same, they’ll take the little bits and pieces that went right and keep them and change the little bits and pieces that went wrong.”
The first game of the season will be away with Southcity Bulls First Grade on Sunday 13th April.
“It’s a bit of an unknown how teams are travelling heading into the season, but from what I’m hearing they will be solid contenders again and they will be up there in the mix.”
“There’s no slouches.You can’t take any of the opposition in the Group Nine competition lightly. On any given day last place can beat first place on the ladder; the last few seasons anyway.”
“You look at a few different games that we had there last year, we were running last on the ladder. We go to Young and 16 of our First Graders were all on the injury list and we all but won that game at Young. We were last, they were first or second at the time.
“The competition itself is great. We’ve got good numbers in the seniors, but we also need good numbers given the amount of shift workers (train drivers and those who work in corrections) that we’ve got in amongst our ranks, so we need 50plus senior players on our books to be able to field two sides each week and we’re very close to that already.
The South West Slopes Times covers an area approximately the size of Fiji in country NSW. We look after a population of more than 50,000 people with our staff servicing 7 major towns and dozens of villages with our story telling footprint.
We offer weekly print editions at $3 a copy and we also offer digital subscriptions across 3 months $30, 6 months $60 and 12 months $120.
We are one of the last truly local independent family run newspaper businesses in the state.
Contact us today to find out how we can promote your business or organisation across our huge network by emailing ads@thetimes.net.au or by calling 0413 763 216.
If you have a news tip, lead or scoop for us please make contact as we love celebrating our communities. You can contribute articles via our South West Slopes Times website.
