Bairnsdale Football Netball Club will commence its 2024 campaign with a standalone game at home against Traralgon on Easter Saturday at the Bairnsdale City Oval.
With no other football in the region, the Redlegs are hoping a large crowd of local football diehards and tourists will attend the match and get behind the local side which is looking to build on its seventh place on the Gippsland League Ladder last year, where it was victorious five times and drew another.
The club is excited to unveil high profile Melbourne recruits, Cooper Harvey, Tom Blenheim and Hugh Longbottom.
All three have played in the strong Victorian Amateur Football Competition and are talented and skilful, who look to be ideal fits for the emerging Redlegs.
Bairnsdale coach, Logan Austin, expects the trio to be prominent from the beginning.
“Cooper Harvey is an outside winger,
Tom Blenheim a midfielder, while Hugh Longbottom will play as a key defender, ” Austin said.
Bairnsdale will go into the match without injured stars, Brayden McCarrey (calf) and Xavier Richards (ankle), and may unveil local recruits, Josh Lando (Lindenow), Nick Ward and Mitch Toms (both Wy Yung), with Gippsland Power listed youngsters, Jesse Bills and Matt Hamilton in the running to play, while Max East is close to debuting.
Five players who won’t be playing are Andrew Nelson, John Gooch, Nick George (all cleared to Lucknow), Tom Hudson (Lakes Entrance) and Nathan Dennison.
Austin is expecting Traralgon to be a younger outfit than last year but is expecting a tight contest.
“They certainly haven’t landed any big names, but they are a proud club who are always competitive, hopefully we can get our season off to a flying start with an important win,” Austin said.
Now in his third year as coach, Austin expects his younger players to continue to develop and is predicting a big season from Byron Vickery.
“He’s super fit and been smashing everyone in the running, he’s a potential top five player in the competition when on song and he’s set for a big year,” Austin said.
The Redlegs aren’t making any rash statements or predictions for 2024, but will be happy to continue to improve and be competitive in all four quarters of matches which gives every chance of winning matches.
“We are just looking to continue to be relevant and competitive in a really tough competition,” football manger, Greg McCarrey, said.
Local identity Kenny Koala and Easter Bunny will be around at half time to entertain the young folk on Saturday.
