Blue Boars determined to go bigger and better

Narrabri Rugby Club president Mick Coffey and vice-president Tim Whan are determined to help deliver the club success on the field but they are just as passionate about the club doing great things off it.

And if everything falls into place and the pair’s vision for Dangar Park becomes a reality then the home of the Blue Boars will become the western rugby hub of NSW.

The club has been working on renovation extension clubhouse plans for the past 12 months, now in the final draft stages, and is hoping to release and circulate the plans to members and anyone else interested by the end of the season.

Coffey said that he and Whan had a vision to take the club in an exciting new direction and that the goal was to make Narrabri’s Dangar Park the go-to destination in the west.

“When NSW Rugby want to run a holiday camp for 6-16-year-olds we want them to not just go to Tamworth or Dubbo, we want Narrabri to have the facilities so [Tamworth and Dubbo] get overlooked,” Coffey said.

“We’ll have such a great ground there with the clubhouse to go with it and we’ll have better lights as well, as our current ones are 20-years-old so they are coming to the end of their life.

“We also want to attract things like NRC games and Shute Shield games, the sky’s the limit we want to turn [Dangar Park] into a top class facility that only regional cities at the moment have the luxury of.

“We want to do that for ourselves and it will also benefit the town. The flow on effects are the restaurants, the pubs, accommodation, fuel and everything, it would be another string for Narrabri to have in the bow.”

Coffey said that the club essentially wanted to double its current capacity.

“It’s going to be a four to five year project, funds permitting obviously which the next step would be fundraising outside of a COVID-19 environment,” Coffey said.

“What we want to end up with is basically a double on what we’ve got, so double the capacity in the grandstand and double the capacity inside.

“The bar will go to a full horse shoe shape so there would be a lot more service area there.

“One half of the clubhouse will be, for after the game, the loud area where a band might play, then the other side would be more of a lounge bar wider area for families.

“We will have separate male and female change rooms as well.”

Coffey said that the club’s vision for its renovation extension clubhouse plans was dependent on a combination of grants and fundraising.

Meanwhile the club is also in negotiations to take over more of the land at Dangar Park from Crown land.