What a difference a festival can make.
Narrabri Rugby Club is busily preparing for the Santos Festival of Rugby which will arrive in town on Wednesday, February 3, and continue through to Saturday, February 6.
Headlining the festival will be the NSW Waratahs v Queensland Reds match on the Friday, with coaching clinics, training runs, and sevens matches and tournaments to be held either side of the main event.
The venue of all that action, Dangar Park, is currently undergoing a facelift which Narrabri will reap the rewards from for many years to come.
New lights have brightened up the home of the Narrabri Rugby Club, much to the delight of its president Mick Coffey.
“The installation of the new lights was completed at about 2am on Monday morning,” Coffey said.
“They are up and running and they are amazing, the word amazing probably doesn’t do them justice.
“They are well beyond our expectations, we knew they were going to be good but to see them in the flesh and how bright they are is incredible.
“They are international standard, the rating of the globes we’ve now got up there exceed the minimum level for broadcasting on television.
“The light stretches to every corner of the ground, there are no more little dark areas any more which we had when we had the old floodlights up.”
Coffey told The Courier that the new lights would provide the club with the opportunities to host more senior night games moving forward and would open up avenues for Narrabri to become a hub for the Friday night Regional Youth Rugby competitions.
The Dangar Park field, which has not hosted a match since March last year, is also in immaculate condition.
“The field is probably looking as good as it’s ever looked,” Coffey said.
“There’s a solid fertilising and watering regime at the moment with no foot traffic on the field, our pre-season training is on the bottom field only.”
Other aspects of Dangar Park have also received upgrades and there is more to come across the next 10 days.
“There’s been new goalposts installed on the bottom field, among other things” Coffey said.
“Everything else will start coming together across the next 10 days, those next 10 days will be huge over there.
“There will be grandstands arriving to be constructed.
“A lot of the sponsor signage around the fences that were getting pretty dated will be freshened up, our sponsors have been really great.
“There’ll be a lot more happening to get the place ready for a great few days of rugby.”
Meanwhile, Narrabri Rugby Club’s pre-season training got underway on Thursday, January 14 ahead of what is expected to be a successful 2021 season.
Coffey said that before the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to last year’s rugby, the club was enjoying a positive 2020 pre-season which has flowed into 2021.
“There’ll be a lot of selection headaches this year, that’s for sure,” the Blue Boars’ president said.
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