Damian Willis, Junee co-coach started playing first grade when he was 16. He’s been around first grade footy for 25 years and it isn’t over for the 41 year old yet.
He will be looking after the Diesels for the preseason and the first 6 rounds of the competition until Chase Bernard and Ben Shea, who are both Props will return from France to take over their duties with the 8 and 10 on their back, and to co coach Junee.
Damian said, “I’m just looking after the preseason and that back seat assistant role and we will go from there”.

“We kicked off just one day a week, three weeks before Christmas and then we started back on January 7 and we are well into it with this being our fourth week.
“The numbers are good and it’s always positive to have so many numbers. We’ve been getting about 50-odd to training with the 18s, senior women and the senior men.
“That’s always a good start, especially this early. There’s not a great deal of clubs that started before we started as it was Christmas and people were still having holidays, so it was pretty pleasing to see so many numbers at this time of the year.

“The reason why we started so early was we have a trial match against the Corrimal Cougars on 1st March and we wanted to be match fit running into that trial and going up to Wollongong for that.
“There was only 16 sessions once preseason started in January that we could get ourselves ready for that.
“I coached Junee First Grade in 2012 (the captain-coach), and I’ve done a little bit of stuff with the juniors and then I got into female Rep Tag and then the Tackle and then in 2022 I was an assistant to Matty Pike in the Riverina Bulls systems and then I didn’t play footy in 2023 and didn’t coach or do anything, I sat out of everything, and then Daniel Foley got the First Grade coaching job and he said he couldn’t do it without someone helping him.

“He’s my first cousin and he asked me and I ummed and arred about it for a little bit and then stepped into it as an assistant role with him and I think the Club thought I did a pretty good job with that and thought while the boys are over in France playing, they need someone on the ground so they’d give me a shot at that.
“Running preseason and the guts out of people is pretty easy, and then implement the systems that Ben and Chase want to bring to the club and making sure that everyone is on the same page by the time they get here in round five or six is basically my job.

“I will then help them throughout the season whether it be sitting on the sideline or playing or whatever they need me to do as I told them what ever the Club needs or whatever the boys need I will jump in and do whatever.
“If I’m fit and the body pulls up okay after games and all that sort of stuff I will be right. I broke my rib last year and had a few weeks off and then I broke my rib playing touch just before Christmas and it has put me back a little bit. I don’t know how I’m going to go being that old (41) with the contact and how I am going to enjoy that stuff waking up on Monday Mornings.
“To be honest it wasn’t too bad other than that little rib injury, I played ten games and I wasn’t too bad after those games and I got suspended for two weeks, which was even better, but I will play week by week and hopefully there’s enough depth in our club in the outside backs where I can just take a backseat and fill in where I have to.

“2022 was one of my best years at Gundagai and we did a lot of pilates and stuff like that on the Tuesday night before we trained for about an hour with the Synergy group in Gundagai. I’ve been looking after my body since I went to Gundagai when I was 28.
“When I coached Junee I had a lot of injuries. I dislocated my shoulder, broke a rib, broke a thumb, have done my knee and I was sort of going to give it away in that 2012 season and then I went to Gundagai and saw how they look after themselves and how professional they were and I wished that I had looked after myself that way ten years beforehand.

“I go to the pool and swim and go to the gym every day, run, do my weights, eat properly during the season and all that sort of stuff, but I think the more you look after your body and don’t go out and get on the grog all the time, you recover a lot better than what you do if you abuse your body off the field as well.
“It’s probably being that regimented now and sticking to that routine helps me and come Wednesday, Thursday I’m almost ready to go come Sunday.
“Last year couldn’t have gone any worse for us. We had 90% of our players that we brought to the club injured with season ending injuries and a few of them are coming back from those that have decided to come back for this season from shoulder reconstructions and knee reconstructions, which will probably hamper their ability to play in round one or the trials.
“Everything that could go wrong went wrong last year and we couldn’t put the same team on the paddock week in and week out, it was different every week, especially in our halves combinations and our hooker competitions and our spine.
“It didn’t matter what we did there was someone injured, niggles, unavailable because they work on the trains and stuff and that is one of the hardest parts for us is having guys that aren’t working on the trains and shift work and stuff like that and getting them to training.
“We did the best we could but we only won three games. We were so close on so many occasions, especially on that first forty minutes, we were very competitive and then we couldn’t just run home with it because we had no-one left on the sideline and it was really frustrating to see how we could have gone but just couldn’t hold it together.
“Hopefully this year with a little bit of depth, especially in our forwards and outside backs, and like I said, you can’t count your chickens before they hatch, but we are just going to put in the work and hopefully build on some momentum in the trials and take that in to the season and make sure every-one is fit and healthy for round one and we have our best team on the paddock and can continue to have those good combinations stick together throughout the season and fingers crossed we can string a few more wins together and be pretty competitive.”
Damian will no doubt lead the Diesels in the right direction and his experience will be vital in 2025.
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