BLAYNEY has appointed Group 10 veteran Will Ingram as the club’s captain-coach ahead of the 2017 Group 10 premier league season.
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Ingram’s appointment comes on the back of an emotional year for the club, forced to play on without halfback Terry Brown after he disappeared, last seen jumping off the headland at Boomerang Beach near Forster in the 2016 pre-season.
An veteran forward with rep football experience, Ingram, if you ask Blayney president Adam Hornby, is set to bring a wealth of experience to the role, with last year’s captain-coach Dan Howarth stepping down from the gig after last season.
“He’s a real leader for our club,” Hornby said of Ingram, who joined the club in 2015 after a long stint with the Cowra Magpies.
“He brings that experience to the job. Not knocking Dane, what he did for us was great as coach, but Will’s going to get everyone to training, that’ll be fixed.
“We had a tough year last year, I’m incredibly proud of the boys, and I’ve said that to them, I take my hat off to the boys in the team. It was really hard time for the entire club.”
The Bears broke through for their first finals appearance in over a decade in the 2015 season, winning a semi-final too before falling in the second week of the post season.
This year, the Bears flew out of the gates to sit second on the competition ladder after six rounds, but ultimately missed the finals, finishing sixth.
Hornby said the club was in the market for a couple more players – preferably a half given the gaping hole the class of Brown left in the No.6 jumper.
Crucially, the club has secured nigh on all of its playing roster from the last two seasons as well, with Hornby hoping Howarth will also return to play next winter.
That will likely depend on injury, with the damaging, representative backrower battling an abductor injury throughout the 2016 season.
Still, Hornby was understandably looking forward to 2017, with the club set to ride the wave of premiership success following the Bears league tag title win, the club’s first grand final victory since winning first division in 1999.
“The girls were the success story of our season,” Hornby added.
Ingram isn’t mucking around either, with the Bears training, in all grades, from November 17. The club will train again on November 24 and then on December 1.