Narrabri Rugby League Football Club are eyeing off a successful 2024 Group 4 Rugby League season, with players from all four grades currently working hard at pre-season training.
Matt Keeffe has recently taken the reins as the club’s president and he has loved what he has seen so far from the Blues’ coaches and players.
Keeffe, who is a former Blues player, attended the club’s annual general meeting in October last year and was nominated for the vice-president role, which he proudly accepted. Raymond McMillan stepped down as president due to personal reasons since then, and Keeffe stepped up to fill the void, with Mick Bruce taking on the vice-president role.
Keeffe told The Courier that he was proud to have the chance to lead a club that he holds close to his heart.
“I’m excited,” he said.
“I played, my brother played and my father played for years as well.
“I certainly didn’t have an illustrious career because I busted myself when I was young, but the time that I actually had playing rugby league in Narrabri, I made lots of mates.
“I’m quite excited that I can give back now. It’s all come around full circle.
“We want to give back to the community because it’s the community’s club, it’s not our club.”
Keeffe said that he was impressed with the four head coaches at the club and the way they are currently going about the pre-season.
Glenn ‘Snow’ Collins is the club’s first grade coach for 2024 after he took over from Josh Trindall. Trindall was initially named to lead the side for a second consecutive year in 2024, however, he decided to step aside after Collins showed interest to concentrate on playing.
Trindall will still be a Narrabri Blue in 2024 and will be one of the senior players that Collins looks to for both support and guidance.
Premiership-winning reserve grade coach Ashley Hynch is back on board to coach the Blues’ reserve grade side, while Lee Browning will step up from junior rugby league coaching to take on the under-18s role and Bob Price will coach the ladies’ league tag team.
“It’s quite exciting what our coaches have planned this year, especially Snow,” Keeffe said.
“There’s also a lot of young guys there that played last year who now have a full season under their belt and they played really well towards the end of the year.
“They improved quite a lot, and they played with heart. They’re going to be much better players this year and they have an idea of what to expect going forward.”
The Blues’ president also declared that the club’s committee would work as a team and would look to harness more knowledge from the club’s life members, who he said were the lifeblood of the club and had done a great job in the past to help get the Blues where they are today.
“There’ll be a lot of old school ideas mixed in with new school ideas,” he added.
“It’s going to be a team effort this season.
“It’s not just one or two people. I’m only there as a figurehead, and I’m there to work with all the committee members and our life members to set the goals and aim towards getting there.”
Keeffe added that he and everyone at the Narrabri Blues were excited about the return of the Wee Waa Panthers to Group 4 this year, and said they were looking forward to that local rivalry resuming.
To order photos from this page click here
