Leading into the 2018 Group 19 season, Uralla junior Tigers were staring down the barrel of entering the rugby league wilderness with numbers of player registrations suffering a drop in recent years.
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The Group requires a club to enter a minimum of three teams in the junior competition and Uralla were struggling to form one until senior club Narwan Eels entered the frame. Narwan don’t field any teams in the junior competition but with plenty of kids within the ranks, wanted to find a way for them to pull on the boots.
“We were contacted by Candita [Collins] from Narwan wanting to have a meeting and get things together,” Tigers committee member Karen Steward said.
“We were really struggling for numbers in Uralla.”
Collins said it was a joint venture with both clubs in favour of the idea, despite rumours circulating that Narwan want to take over the Tigers. She said the purpose was to boost junior rugby league in the area.
“Basically the idea from Narwan's point of view is, we have just come into the competition after 12 years and trying to re-build our community profile outside the knockout football carnival,” she said.
“Over the last 12 months we have been working really hard to get into different aspects of the community and seeing that Uralla has been a struggling junior rugby league club, that is just one avenue for us.
“So far we have had a lot of positive feedback for it and the main purpose is to get more kids on the field.
“Uralla have kids that are keen to get out there but they don't have the numbers to field a full team so that is what we want to do, help boost their numbers and get more kids in junior league.
“It is building relationships between different organisations too rather than just having the clubs seen as competitive towards each other, we will be seen as encouraging each other.”
They are still asking for players to sign up as well as coaches and helpers.