RECORD FEATURE: COLEAMBALLY BLUES

During a 2014 semi-final, in an emotional half-time address, Coleambally coach Mitch Carroll told his players, ‘I’ve only been here two seasons and I bloody love the joint’.
His successor as coach, Josh Hamilton, is working out what he meant.
“You come back to the club, mate, and there’ll be 20 to 30 guys, reserve grade as well, all sitting around in a circle,” Hamilton says. 
“All having a beer together. Having a laugh, having a joke. It’s not just on the field that everyone feels the same way about each other, it’s off the field as well.”
Well, what is it like on the field, then?
“The most impressive thing for me is that everyone just has a red-hot crack,” Hamilton says.
“You can’t coach that into guys. They’re naturally bred.”
Hamilton is getting the best out of a group of players only too happy to line up behind a new, young, leader. That support, from senior players in particular, hasn’t gone unnoticed. After all, there is no shortage of experience at the Blues.
Good mates Nathan Jones and Carl Pound have played their 250th first grade games for the club within a matter of weeks of each other; Shane Pound played his 300th first grade game around this time last year; and Tony Pound is just a couple of games away from the same milestone. That’s just four players, and 1100 first grade games at the club.
Hamilton’s grateful for their support, but there’s admiration as well as thanks when he speaks of the Blues’ old guard.
“They’re awesome, they’re the best,” he says.
“They’re just down-to-earth blokes who have a red hot crack every week and I’m sure you’ve seen over the years, they’ve been pretty damaging in this competition.
“But they don’t think they’re better than anyone else or anything like that. They just rock up and play and do their job week in, week out.
“At other clubs I’ve seen people who think they know better (than everyone else). These guys have probably played more footy than anyone I know and they certainly don’t do that.”
Hamilton says he was never going to try to reinvent the wheel at a club that has made finals the last two seasons. The Mitch Carroll era had given the side a base and with Hamilton among a handful of arrivals for 2016, his focus was fitness, defensive pressure, and doing the basics right as a team. He’s learning plenty about himself along the way but has loved his introduction to coaching. Fortunate to have players who know their roles, he says having their unqualified backing from the start helped enormously.
“I think it’s probably the best club I could ever go to to be a first-year coach,” Hamilton says.
“The support for me has been massive. (Coaching) is not an easy thing, as you find out when you have a crack at it – it’s much easier to sit back and criticise when you’re just a player. When you’re doing it… it’s a challenge, I would say.
“But with the support I’ve had, they’ve made my life real easy.”
The gratitude doesn’t take away from the fact that Hamilton earned his players respect. It started with a pre-season training camp near Jingellic, which included a boxing session, swimming and a brutal 10 kilometre trek in the mountains.
Nathan Jones knows all about it – second hand.
“I didn’t go cause I had cricket on, so it was good. It was a blessing from what I hear – haha,” Jones giggles.
“He worked them pretty hard, they said. (But) he leads from the front and I enjoy that from a coach – he’s willing to put the work in. He trains pretty hard and makes us all follow him, which is good. He brings something different too – there was a lot of running and boxing and gym – he mixes things up so you don’t get too stale.”
Jones has played most of his 250 games with Carl Pound – who did go on the pre-season camp. The highly-regarded full-back says a tough workout followed by a feed and a few drinks was the perfect way to get together and to meet some new teammates.
Pound says he’s enjoyed playing a lot of footy with Jones, and with former coach Andrew McGown. Not to mention the opportunity to play alongside his four brothers – Shane, Tony, Jay and Dean.
“Yeah it’s been good, we’ve all got each other’s back. And we give each other plenty of lip too when we’re out there, so it’s all good,” Carl says.
It certainly was ‘all good’ in 2005 when he returned hom after a season at Wagga Tigers and Coleambally claimed the Coreen League premiership with a remarkable upset win over Coreen-Daysdale, built on a huge second half fightback, That was under now-president Shane Mannes, who both Pound and Jones (who have played footy together since they were 12)  credit as a big influence on their footy careers.
But for all the enjoyment Coleambally locals have had playing together, Pound agrees that the Blues’ arrivals this season – including Brandon Mathews, Chris Cerato, Shaun Light, Tom Groves, James Fallon – have been a great injection, adding to the likes of Wes Kiley, Drew Kenna and Carroll who have been there for a couple of years now.
And all of them are following their coach and ruckman into battle.
“Josh has been really good – he’s putting in,” Pound says. “He gets us going – once he gets started, the rest of us sort of follow along.”
After back-to-back losses to start the year, the Blues haven’t dropped a game since. They’re the only side to have beaten every other team this year. They’re also in the hunt for the minor premiership albeit with two big challenges to come against The Rock-Yerong Creek and East Wagga-Kooringal.
But Hamilton has started to come into his own in the last month, and is having a big influence on games.
“Against North Wagga, we couldn’t get near it in the first quarter, then he just started dominating in the ruck second quarter,” Jones says. “We blew them away in the second – it started from him. He’s getting better and better every week, he is,” Jones says.
Mannes says it’s that sort of leadership that the Blues were after.
“I guess you could say he’s got a bit of an aura about him. Everybody follows the leader, sort of thing… and he’s got all the boys believing, I think.”