FARRER FILES: CSU BUSHPIGS
2014 Finish: 8th
Home & Away: 0 wins; 16 losses.
Club Best & Fairest: Wayde Archibald
Telstra Rising Star: Matthew Grauer-Kompos
Snapshot:
The only way is up. That’s one of the big pluses for CSU heading into 2015, under the leadership of a new coach and a new president. Ash Weldon takes charge of the Bushpigs’ on-field performance, while Tristan Robinson is at the helm of the club, aiming to steer a course towards sustainability, competitiveness and respect. After a grim season last year, testing the resolve of all involved as the Bushpigs went without a first grade win, there have been doubters.
“It’s easy to knock the club from outside,” says Robinson. “But CSU folding – that was never a consideration. The club’s been around since 1972. Sometimes in football people seem to have short term memories, remembering who won the flag last year and who is recruiting well in the off-season. We won a premiership in 2001. We made finals in 2011 and missed by half a percent in 2012. We won two reserve grades flags in 2009 and 2010. And our netball has been very successful.”
Pointing out that other clubs have experienced rough patches and come out the other side, the president says CSU has a plan to achieve its ambition of being recognised as a competitive, unified and sustainable football and netball club. “Temora went 50-odd years without a flag. Marrar have gone a long time without winning one. North Wagga and East Wagga have had their troubles; North Wagga even folded at one point. It’s a credit to the people at those clubs what they’ve done. We have to be realistic, but as a club we’re about setting our own milestones – short-term and long-term goals – and not worrying about what the critics might say.”
Robinson says the club had earmarked Weldon as potential coaching material but also had a duty to sound out external options. After a wide search, they settled on Weldon as a non-playing coach (a back injury has curtailed his playing career), and will create a set-up that offers the 24-year old plenty of support, including on-field leadership in the form of Jack Egan, who comes across from Collingullie, as an assistant coach.
Still a student, Weldon obviously has strong connections with the university. “We’re very excited with the way Ash is going to take it on. We just went down to the AFL’s coaches’ conference in Melbourne and we got a bucketful out of it. Just an insight into the way other clubs are running and the things they’re doing – from AFL clubs right down to bush footy.
“Ash will be good to try to redevelop that attraction for uni students to play with us. He’s young, he’s a student himself, he’s got enthusiasm and he’s keen to try a few new things. It’s about reigniting that passion and commitment among the group. I think he’s a good person to get the best out of players.”
The first-year coach knows he faces a challenge to turn the Bushpigs into a competitive outfit. He’ll start with the foundations – skills and fitness – while bearing in mind the most important message drummed home at the AFL conference. “It was a bit different to what I thought… everyone kept saying, ‘Make it fun. You’ve got to get blokes along and make it fun.’ The more everyone’s enjoying themselves the more commitment you’ll get out of them and the more you can do.”
For a university club aware that one of its reasons for existence is to offer sport to students – and fly the flag for Australian Rules in the process – that message is perhaps more important than anywhere else.
Highlights:
Netball has been the lifeblood of the university club for the past couple of years, and in 2014 they ensured a strong CSU presence on Farrer League grand final day, representing the club in all four grades. A-grade took the ultimate prize with a two-goal win over North Wagga, while A-Reserve, B- and C-grade all finished runners-up.
The footballers were full of appreciation for the support – and success – provided by the netballers. “To bring home an A-grade flag was massive excitement, and a huge achievement for the club,” says Robinson.
In football terms, there was upside in offering opportunities to players to prove they can play senior football – uncovering the likes of Telstra Rising Star Matt Grauer-Kompos. But the season was as much about resilience and resolve.
“Obviously we had standouts like Wayde [Archibald],” says Weldon. “But really it was the blokes who kept turning up week after week on game day and put their heart into it. They never gave up. This year, if we can keep putting that heart into it, but get fit, teach them a bit more about football, and work on skills, we’ll improve.”
Robinson recalls playing in Coleambally, when the Bushpigs ended up with only 14 fit players. “We had been competitive up til then but got blown out of the water. But one of their guys came up and acknowledged we’d played with a lot of heart and that the scoreboard didn’t reflect the game or the effort of our guys. There were a few games where we were undermanned and the opposition acknowledged our effort in players gritting their teeth and busting their a****.”
Lowlights:
A club that naturally faces a high turnover every few years, CSU lost a significant number of players prior to 2014, and the exodus exposed a lack of depth throughout the season. They managed to scrape together the numbers to ensure match commitments were met, and forfeits were avoided but commitment to training was in contrast to the commitment shown during games, making a tough gig that much more difficult for coach Brett Garrett.
Robinson says the club has taken steps to ensure Weldon doesn’t walk into all the same issues. “We’ll be utilising a pretty structured leadership group across both grades. We’re building the structures and giving the club and the team a bit of direction… Players who have been around a while, they can help out with getting players to training, doing some of the dirty work behind-the-scenes, and helping off field. I think that will go a long way towards improving our situation.”
A season without a win followed by a quiet off-season in terms of recruitment has opened the club up to criticism and rumours about its future. But Robinson says they have taken steps to ensure AFL remains a part of campus life. “The long term goals are about sustainability … working on our relationships with sponsors and the university and hopefully working on improving the facilities.”
Surprise Packet:
If uncovering Matt Grauer-Kompos was one of the highlights of 2014, it was also the surprise packet. Epitomising why the club exists at CSU, he turned up with a mate for a game in reserves and after getting best on ground, Garrett offered him a chance in the seniors. With a background in soccer, he adapted quickly and was among the team’s best in his first half-dozen games before getting injured. Robinson says the club is looking forward to his development this year. “He’s really keen. He’s champing the bit, training, working hard at the gym, doing crossfit. He’s in front of everyone else running the drills so far. He wants to in the midfield this year so he’s working hard. With that fitness, enthusiasm and commitment he’s going to be another one to watch.”
Areas to improve:
The new coach pulls no punches in this department. “We’ve got a fair bit to work on, like structure, and the basics – skill level, fitness and commitment. Our ground’s nearly the biggest in the league and that was our downfall, because we weren’t fit enough. And not being able to run out games. You may not have the skill but you can still put pressure on. We need to get everyone fit and make sure we can get numbers to the ball.”
Part of Robinson’s push to support the coach includes retaining a strength and conditioning specialist, Isaac Roebuck, who has a background with Aggies rugby but played a couple of reserve grade games with the Bushpigs last year. He’s keen to get serious about Aussie Rules himself as well as help the team with fitness. “He’s going to take a role in strength and conditioning, core work, upper body strength, preparation, recovery. He’ll take a leadership role in that area and push the group and get the most out of them,” says Robinson. “He’s definitely got potential to play first grade once he gets to know the game and acquires a bit more football knowledge. He’s got the athletic ability and the tackling and most of the skills.”
Weldon is looking forward to the help, as well as being interested in the potential. “He’s a bit of a freak athlete. He’s one of those blokes who will pick it up. And taking strength and conditioning – that’s the idea, to get a leadership team together and have a few blokes with some responsibility throughout the team, that’ll help.”
CSU is still hopeful of picking up players, but at this stage of the year will again be reliant on who turns up at the university. Although one of the challenges remains convincing students who are accomplished footballers that they should ply their trade with CSU, against the attraction of Farrer League rivals and RFL clubs. “The recruiting game is very competitive,” notes Robinson. “We thought we had a couple of blokes, but it’s the old saying, you haven’t got your guy til you’ve got the signature on paper.”
What to look forward to:
A couple of wins, hopefully! A change of coach is an opportunity to start with a clean slate but some premiership points on the ladder would go a lot further to building confidence within the club.
CSU is a unique club which operates in a vastly different environment to its competition, given many players move on every two to three years and there is not the same family engagement built up over years of involvement. However, those involved say the effort and commitment of players is above and beyond that required at other clubs. At the Bushpigs, it’s generally the players who are manning the canteen and the scoreboard, setting up the ground, running the water, and plenty more.
Ensuring Weldon has the support around him is a step in the right direction, with the club hoping it gives him the opportunity to focus on his coaching.
With experience under Shane Lenon at Collingullie, Jack Egan will be a key right-hand man for the coach. “Probably the best thing with Jack is he’s from the Goulburn Valley Football League, same as me, so we’re on the same level in terms of game plan and the way we want to play. He’s played a lot of midfield too in his career, which I haven’t, so he’ll take charge of that.”
Weldon, who originally hails from Echuca/Moama, says he and fellow student Egan ideally want to see the Bushpigs playing a running game. “We’ll start off pretty simple, doing a lot of work on the basics and learning where to run. There’s a lot of blokes still to come back to uni, so hopefully it’ll develop once we see the cattle we’ve got.”
There are a couple of other arrivals from the Hume League – Will Lane, a ruckman/forward from Osborne; and Ryan Kirkwood, a wingman/midfielder who had last season off but had previously played with Rand-Walbundrie – who the club hopes will offer leadership and depth to a team with plenty of inexperienced footballers.
Weldon is also counting on improvement from those players going into their second season in the game, or who had played little senior football prior to last year. “You probably see the biggest change in blokes like rugby converts. If we can teach them how to kick and where to move you can really see them grow as players.”
He’s talking about players like Dylan McPhail (“He only played three or four games then broke his arm against Coly. He’ll be back this year and he should be a good contributor, he can play midfield or on the outside, we’ll see what depth we have) and Lachie Shilton – a key defender last year who had played the game a little at school before dabbling in gridiron. “He’s another one who learnt a lot and over the summer he’s put on a bit of size.”
