THE local rugby league season will get underway next Friday night with the start of the Tumut Old Boys Nines.
The competition name change reflects the entry of Tumbarumba, Adelong and Batlow, making it no longer a purely pub-based tournament.
There will be two competitions, as there was last year, Men’s and Women’s, with a total of 199 players taking part.
“In the Men’s competition there are six teams,” Tumut Old Boys secretary Tony Roddy said.
“It is all the same teams as last year, except Royals are out and Star Redmen are in. With the ladies, there are four teams, Adelong, Gundagai, Tumbarumba and Commercial Sharks. Three of them are the same as last year but we are really happy to welcome Gundagai for the first time. We are also very happy to welcome back Star Redmen. They went into recess for a few seasons.”
Each Friday night there will be five games played, three men’s and two women’s, and it begins at Batlow next Friday night, February 7.
“Then we go to Tumba, Adelong and the last two rounds in Tumut as it was last year and the final in Tumut,” Mr Roddy said.
“The finals will be the same as it was last year, where 1 v 2 in the men is the Roddy Shield, 3 v 4 is going to be the Bristow Madigan Plate, and with the women, 1 v 2 is the Pearl Jeffery Plate.”
The list of players will be similar to last year, but probably marginally better.
“We have got some new players. We’ve got some young ones coming through,” Mr Roddy said.
“The teams have done, particularly the men have done, a really good job of recruiting players. They’ve got I would say about 140 players. Teams like Batlow and Tumba have got really good numbers, and so have the Tumut sides. Adelong’s got good numbers. A couple of the ladies’ teams I think are a bit light-on, but they’ve got reserves, and I’m sure other girls will come on throughout the season.”
This will be the first year the Nines competition is affiliated with the NSW Rugby League.
“They pay the insurance. We did this for insurance purposes and also administration,” Mr Roddy said.
“Players register through the NSWRL through the My Sideline program and then, if they go on and play another winter comp, men or women, in a NSWRL-sanctioned comp, the registration they pay for this competition is virtually credited against their future registration, so it is a good deal.
“Also, we are getting a fair bit of assistance from the boys in Wagga, that’s David Skinner and Sam Bramich. We’ll have live scoring, automatic table updates, and so forth. We’re still getting a lot of support. We’ve now gone to an eight-page program because of the additional teams and it is all working well. I just hope we get good weather and no major injuries.”
