Wee Waa United hits the ground running in pre-season

Local soccer club Wee Waa United has been busily preparing for the 2022 Namoi Soccer League campaign in recent months and the players’ hard work has already begun paying off.

Player-coach David Avery and 14 of his teammates travelled to Moree on Saturday, March 12, to represent Wee Waa United in a trial match.

The visitors won that game 4-1 after they led 2-1 at the half-time break.

Avery, one of the key players at Wee Waa United, stepped up to coach the club in 2022 following the departure of former coach Shane Soutter.

Teammates Dean Hamblin and Alex Lucero have taken on assistant coach roles as well and will both continue to play in 2022.

Avery told The Courier they were all impressed with their team’s performance in the trial game against Moree.

“We played pretty well,” Avery said.

“There’s probably seven of us there from last year, and we’ve picked up a fair few new players, so it’s pretty much a new team.

“We are just trying to figure things out now and gel as a team, but I was pretty impressed with how we started.

“We have a different formation this year which everyone picked up pretty well, which was good to see.

“We’re going with a 4-3-3, so a bit different to last year.”

The club’s depth was well and truly on show in its trial match victory in Moree as it scored a comfortable win without several players who will likely be first grade regulars in 2022 including Nathan Hamblin, the returning Corey Leonard and Les Bonney and a new addition from Narrabri Eleven FC, Ibrahim Sultani.

Avery was proud of some of the club’s younger players who stepped up and excelled in the trial match and was also impressed with the few new players in the team who played.

One of those was Ray Nixon who bagged a double on debut. He scored the side’s second goal in the first half after Lucero gave Wee Waa an early lead.

Moree’s Alex Madden scored before half-time to reduce the home side’s deficit, but Wee Waa was too strong in the second stanza and added two more goals to the scoresheet as Nixon and Avery banged home a goal each to secure a 4-1 win.

Avery was pleased with the Wee Waa team’s fitness, which he credited to an impressive pre-season.

“It’s been pretty good,” Avery said of the pre-season.

“Alex (Lucero) has been smashing us with fitness, which is good.

“We’ve had some good turnouts so far and we actually kicked off a bit earlier this year because there was a bit more interest.

“The lowest we’ve had at training is 17 players and we are hitting about 22 most weeks so we can play a full game every Tuesday and Thursday at the end.

“We’re a lot fitter now than what we are normally are at this time of year and we’ve still got a few more weeks yet before the season gets going so hopefully we can lift it up that little bit more.”

The Namoi Soccer League season will kick off with round one matches on Saturday, April 30.

The first and reserve grade competitions have both grown to six teams as Gunnedah and Inverell enter the competition.

That was confirmed at a competition meeting last night with officials from the clubs and Northern NSW Football.

Meanwhile, Wee Waa United will continue to train on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Cook Oval to prepare for the coming campaign.

The club’s reserve grade side has a trial match that is scheduled to be contested on Saturday, April 2, at Hogan Oval in Narrabri against Narrabri FC.

Avery advised that the trial game against Moree would more than likely be the last match that the first grade team would play before the 2022 season gets underway.