EVERY year, the changing faces of his team haunts a country coach as footballers disappear through pressures of employment, education demands or marriage, and so it is proving for the Forster-Tuncurry Dolphins, back-to-back champions of Lower Mid North Coast rugby union.
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Gone from the ranks of last year’s Dolphins are important members of the pack, hooker James Clarke, Fijian lineout lock Naqito Naibuka and robust backrower Sean Hassett, while fleet-footed winger, Justin Hassett, is leaving for university in Sydney and rugged centre Chris Wynne is working in Newcastle.
Three other premiership forwards, dynamic flanker Steven Stanton, the Dolphins’ player-of-the-year for 2013 and 2014, and locks, Nigel Pereira and Chris Simon, have yet to appear at training, raising concerns about their playing futures, all with considerable distances to travel.
The loss of hooker Clarke is a significant blow. The 26-year-old flanker turned rake is a four-time premiership-winner, having been a member of the Dolphins’ successful first grade squad in 2008, 2010, 2013 and 2014.
Clarke’s 30-metre try in the 2010 grand final when he split Old Bar’s pack of forwards to place the ball down beside the posts was as fine an individual try as has been scored in any season-deciding game of the LMNC competition.
A married man with a year-old son, Clarke’s absence may prove a one-season “retirement” while he builds a new home at Tallwoods after becoming a qualified butcher with Diamond Beach Butchery.
The pleasing aspect for coach Ron McCarthy is that the Dolphins have had some interesting new arrivals, one a thickset stump of a hooker named Scott Bradbrook, 32, manager of a mixed sheep and cattle farm at Coolah while playing with the Coolah Roos until the property’s sale. Bradbrook is living in Forster with a position at the wholesale foods distributors, A. J. Wilson.
Last winter, a soccer footballer and beach sprinter, Jack Nicholson, arrived to try his luck with the Dolphins, proving such a stunning success in his new code he became the leading try-scorer in the competition. He has Mid North Coast Axeman representative written all over him.
This season, two more soccer players, 20-year-old twin brothers, Nick and Daniel Murray, have trained with the rugby club and are adapting encouragingly to the new game. They are both in the region of 120kgs and have all the makings of a formidable pair of locks.
The Lower MNC premiership kicks off on April 11. The Dolphins’ training takes place at Tuncurry’s Peter Barclay Field under trainer John Hassett and coaches McCarthy, Mark Hudson and David Birch from 6pm on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
