Wee Waa Panthers host annual general meeting and begin looking to the future

They might not yet know what competition it will be in, but the Wee Waa Panthers are fully focused on fielding at least two teams in 2026 following a successful annual general meeting last weekend.

The local senior rugby league club held the meeting at Wee Waa Bowling Club on Saturday, where president Ben Oakes was re-elected in the top role for another season and was joined by Matt Freeman (vice-president), Tchkalee Orcher (secretary), Jessie Freeman (treasurer) and Nikita Haynes (registrar) on the executive committee.

Four general committee members were also elected, which included Kylie Hall, Kyle Stewart, Valerie Harradine and Mary Jones.

There has been plenty of speculation in recent months regarding whether Wee Waa will be back in Group 4 in 2026 or whether they will even play at all, which Oakes told The Courier should be resolved before Christmas.

“At the moment, we’re still in talks with NSW Rugby League, and there have been options put forward to us, whether that be to move into the Castlereagh area, the Barwon area, or stay in Group 4,” Oakes said.

“We discussed this briefly on Saturday after our AGM, and we’ll be sitting down with NSW Rugby League’s Cody Tickle to discuss our future and what things will look like if we go into another Group. That meeting will be held on the 8th of December.

“Honestly, we’d like to probably stay in Group 4 because that’s where we originated. But for the future of our club and its longevity, we might need to go into another Group for a little while.

“At the end of the day, the best solution will be to do what is best for the club, and whether that is stay in Group 4 or move to another Group, we’ll have to decide that.

“We’re definitely hoping that decision is made before Christmas so we can get things rolling like getting coaches organised, because we’ve already had people putting their names down to be coaches even though we haven’t advertised them yet.

“We want to get a full team of coaching staff organised as quickly as possible, which includes managers and other roles, so that we can start building our teams.

“We don’t know how many sides we’ll get for next season. We’re definitely looking at trying to get two (senior men and senior women), and if we’re lucky enough to get more, we’ll go with that.

“We’re never going to give up and we’re going to do our best to keep on moving forward and building this club up.

“All I ask of the Wee Waa community is to get behind us and don’t give up on us.”

Oakes was thrilled to be re-elected as president of the Panthers and said he was confident with the committee that will lead the club into 2026.

“I was happy if someone else was interested in having a crack at being president, especially due to a lot of my absence and unavailability this year due to work commitments,” he said.

“I’m a big believer that if you’re going to be the president of a club, you should be present as much as you can, and I wasn’t able to be this year due to work.

“It was a difficult situation that I was in this year, but I was very fortunate to have some very good committee members in Valerie Harradine, Lachlan Trindall and Hannah Hall, who really stepped up, among some other guys like Clifford Toomey, Kimberley Laurie and Jordyn Hayne, who helped out a lot throughout the season.

“As far as I know, most of those guys will still be around the club in some way or form.

“I think our new committee will do a similar job this year. Matt and Jessie Freeman and Nikita were all there in 2024 in our first year back in the comp, and they did a great job back then.”

Oakes also thanked outgoing Group 4 Rugby League chairman Lad Jones, who he said had been instrumental in supporting Wee Waa in their return to the field.

Pat Crowe is the new chairman, while Jones remains on the board.