Lithgow Workies Wolves have been kicking into action with the start of their pre-season training on Tuesday, December 15.
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First grade, second grade and U18s have grouped together on a Tuesday afternoon at Tony Luchetti Sportsground to get into shape for the footy season.
Workies Wolves Club president Anthony ‘Bones’ Brown said during the off season the club focused on player attention up until November.
“Then we had a break for Christmas, and we’ve come back and signed 35 grade players,” Brown said.
With training having just started, Brown expects there will be a few more players coming down for a run.
“Numbers have increased since last year, we’ve got a lot of local boys coming back, a few Wang boys like Josh Howarth and of course our regular boys,” Brown said.
“Most of ‘em are local, we got a few out of town but work in town, but yeah it’s mostly a local side, it’s really good, that’s what we want.”
Competition commences for the Wolves on April 14, but first they will take on the Bathurst knockout on April 7.
“Knockout is a week before competition, so we’ll nominate a team in that. We’ve also got a Mudgee carnival that we may or may not enter.
“We haven’t decided just yet, we’ll see what players wanna commit to Oz [Graeme Osborne],” Brown said.
Following big injuries last year, the Wolves premier league side had a poor season, according to Brown.
“Last year we didn’t have the best of seasons, injuries killed us a fair bit so we ended up like second last maybe even last, wasn’t the best season for them,” he said.
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The team relied heavily on reserves to help fill in each week.
“Reserves helped us out a lot last year, they got to the finals but got knocked out, U18s started off really well got up there but they went out of the range a bit,” Brown said.
Brown said all three grades were now rebuilding and he expected it to be a good season overall for the Wolves.
“We all expect we’ll be in the top three this year, that’s one of the goals, another goal is to have a family orientated club,”
Wolves premier league coach Graeme Osborne said for now it was mainly about assessing what players he’s got.
“I’m assessing their strengths and weaknesses and then trying to get some kilometres in their legs,” he said.
Osborne said he also expected to see a vast improvement this year.
“We’ve recruited pretty heavily, got some big boys playing this year, and still waiting to hear back from past players that have had a year off and wanting to come back,” he said.
Osborne said his ultimate goal was to definitely make the semis.
“You know, it’s everybody’s goal at the end of the year, once you get into the semis then it’s a new comp.
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