RIVERINA FILES: NARRANDERA
2014 Finish: 9th
Home & Away: 2 wins; 14 losses.
Club Best & Fairest: Tyler Webster.
Club Best First Year Player: Matthew Flynn.
Telstra Rising Star: Jakob Vearing
Snapshot:
Narrandera coach Tim Sullivan was thrown into the hot seat 12 months ago, promoted from assistant to senior coach in February when Lachie Hutchins stepped down. A wooden spoon hardly seems a fair reward for a rookie coach thrust into a tough job but he says his rookie team wasn’t knocked around too heavily by the difficult season.
“I think there is a culture building. Despite losing, the boys stuck together – everyone stuck together. They’d all get back to the rooms for a beer or a soft drink and to talk about the game. And a lot of them spent their Sundays together too. It was a great spirit around the club.”
The Eagles won only two games but there were some solid performances and there’s optimism in the coach’s voice when he talks about this year.
“It’s all about getting back up the ladder and being a strong club again. We did a lot of the hard work last year with blooding new kids, developing them, getting them the experience to play senior football.”
They’ll also be playing in a stronger team this year, with the club welcoming back Lachie Hunter and James Sullivan and the promise of more signings to come… three players have given verbal commitments to join the Eagles, and should be announced shortly.
“If we can get more of those hardened, senior footballers, that will help enormously. It’ll allow those young kids to play their football and give them some leeway to learn,” says Sullivan.
Highlights:
One thing about enduring a tough season – you don’t forget your victories in a hurry.
“Definitely the two wins,” says Sullivan when asked about the highlights of 2014. “The big one was against Ganmain – no-one gave us any chance there.”
It was supposed to be Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong’s day. The Lions took a game to Matong where they’d celebrate 30 years since the amalgamated club’s first RFL flag in 1984, and also hold a 10-year reunion of the 2004 premiership, with a game against the old Grong Grong-Matong Magpies’ arch-rivals Narrandera.
The problem for Ganmain is that no-one told the Eagles what role they were meant to play. And they sprang an almighty upset.
“That was pretty good. We had a couple of guys pull out on the day, we had seven 17-year olds or younger, two kids were debuting. It was probably the worst preparation I’ve had as a senior coach, but it all came together nicely,” recalls Sullivan. “And I think it proves to the boys where they can be if they’re switched on and ready to go for an entire game. A few balls bounced our way on the day, but it did show what you can do if you’re prepared to play as you train, or as you talk about it, which was really good. It was rewarding to see not just the win but that realisation.”
The Eagles’ other win was against Turvey Park in round five.
The promise shown by Matt Flynn – who will turn 18 around the start of this season – was also something for Eagles fans to savour. “He’s a pretty good player,” Sullivan says, highlighting the fact that Flynn has already learnt how to impose himself on a match. “His influence on games at 17 years old… usually it takes big guys a few more years to come along and assert themselves. His hands and fitness were also really good last year. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves by any means. But he’s got improvement to come, and he’s going to be exciting for our team.”
Lowlights:
If two wins was the highlight, then it’s probably also the lowlight. No club likes to battle through the season for so little reward, particularly one with the record of Narrandera. On the weekend that the Eagles celebrated a 40-year reunion of the 1974 triple premiership, the senior team was rolled by 98 points at home by Coolamon.
Consistency was the killer for the Narrandera. For example, Narrandera’s loss to Wagga Tigers in round nine. The one-goal defeat was actually a highlight in terms of performance for the young Eagles, but it also highlighted the problem. “It was just in the last quarter we lost to them,” says Sullivan. “Despite a loss, the signs were there that we are there if we can do the right things for four quarters. Not for two, or for a bit of each quarter and dropping. If you’re there for four full quarters you can push those teams higher than you on the ladder.”
There was no relief as the season wore on. The Eagles conceded 15 goals a game between rounds one and nine, and in the second half of the year averaged more than 16.5 goals against them. Their average losing margin throughout the year was 61 points, and was marginally worse in the back half of the season than it was in the first round of home and away games.
These might be different times, but it’s a stark contrast to 1974. Then-coach Adrian Collier says he wasn’t being hailed a hero after the heart-stopping one-point victory for first grade… he recalls being bailed up by supporters who wanted to know why they didn’t win by more! Such was the appetite for success at the time in Narrandera.
Surprise Packet:
Rather than pinpoint any single player for mention as the year’s surprise packet, the coach comes back to the attitude and enthusiasm shown by his players and the culture they’re creating at the club.
“That was a surprise – the real surprise. They could’ve dropped their bundle, they could’ve sulked and surrendered, but everyone stuck together and stayed proud. It showed at presentation night where we packed it out. There was more there than the year we won the grand final. It was actually a really good feeling around the club.
“We had a couple of wins which were great; we had a couple of really good performances that ended in losses; and we had a few thrashings too of course. But the resilience of them all to stick together, hold their heads high, continue showing up to training… it was pleasing.”
Areas to improve:
Consistency is the obvious one, but Sullivan is hoping the addition of hardened footballers – like Lachie Hunter and James Sullivan – will make a big difference. “It’ll help… it takes the pressure off our younger talented guys. It will allow them to try to run and play a natural game and not always have that defensive mindset and the pressure of having to play on the bigger, older more experienced players.”
The basics will also be a focus this year, with the Eagles aware they need to get their skill level up. Too often they were guilty of working the ball up to their half forward line only to make a straightforward error and see the Sherrin sailing back over their heads to unmarked opposition forwards. In particular, Sullivan intends to work on lifting their skill level under pressure and fatigue, and that will be a major focus of the pre-season.
You can take positives out of a difficult season for one year, but Sullivan is well aware that there can be no repeat of 2014. “This year, there are no excuses and that starts with pre-season… no excuses at all. We’re all here, we all know where we sit, and we know we have to work harder to get up the ladder. So that’s the challenge being thrown down to the club and the players … it’s up to us, and it’s going to be exciting to see how they take up the challenge.”
What to look forward to:
The unveiling of some new blood firstly, with Sullivan sweating on a trio of experienced players who are set to pen to paper. And there’s the return of Hunter and James Sullivan. There’s expectation on all of them to deliver individually and there’s anticipation that they’ll have a significant effect on the rest of the list.
“I’m looking forward to the excitement of the unknown,” is how Sullivan puts it. “Seeing how the boys adapt to playing with more senior footballers around them. A lot of them have that hunger and experience to know what to do in certain situations now.”
Assuming there aren’t eleventh hour dramas with their recruitment plans, Sullivan is confident Narrandera will have the ability to push teams height-wise. “Instead of our young guys having to stand up and be our talls, it might be other clubs trying to find ways to stop our talls. We do have the smalls who can run and carry, but often the good ones have had to play on big blokes, to try to stop their key players.”
Matt Flynn is an example of a player set to benefit from more support, when Hunter (a two-time best-and-fairest winner at the club) returns. “Lachie’s six-foot-six and runs like a gazelle. He’s a gun. It’ll be really good to have him and Matty Flynn being able to rotate. It’ll be a pretty formidable task to be able to stop two of them.”
The return of James Sullivan is also widely anticipated. The coach points out that his cousin won every club junior best and fairest from under 11s to under 18s. He was also at the club in 2012 when the Eagles won the premiership although missed the grand final after an illness. “He’s a very versatile player. He’ll be handy across halfback line, on the ball, even pushing forward.”
With the celebrations of ‘74 still echoing in their ears, the current Narrandera footballers are aware of their obligation to uphold the club’s name. “My father was part of that history,” says Sullivan. “You sit around and hear the old blokes talking about the premierships they won, and triple premierships. That’s what we’re really trying to create — a culture where everyone knows about that and everyone knows about the premiership times. We won’t ever get back to the same population they had then… but we have to be a club where people want to come and play, and create that culture that was here in the 70s and 80s.”
