By Tallon Smith

After six years in the wilderness, the Wee Waa Panthers have announced plans to return to Group 4 Rugby League in 2024 in a stunning revival for the game in the area.

Most famous for producing former Parramatta, St Helens and Manly centre Jamie Lyon, the Panthers last competed in the Group 4 competition in 2017.

Club Secretary Hannah Hall said that the town is buzzing at the prospect of their beloved footy team returning.

“We’re pretty passionate out here,” she said.

“A lot of the old boys like my husband, he played when he was younger here, and they’re all very excited about it.

“There’s a lot of talk, we’re getting a lot of traction on our page, a lot of people turning up to training days and committee meetings and that, which is so good to see.”

Hall said that the entire push to reform was led by the town’s youth, who wanted to enter an Under 18s side.

“We’ve got a crop of young men coming through now into the Under 18s, they all turn 18 next year, they played for Narrabri but can’t commit to the travel for training and stuff like that,” she said.

“You know one of the young boys, Kaedn Hamilton, his father Daniel, he played for years for us, and his motto has been hometown or no town, so that’s been the driving force.

“Like myself, our sons are some of the boys that want to play so we’ve just pushed it.” 

The Panthers Secretary said that the club is looking to enter all four grades next year, a remarkable feat given the lengthy period of time the club has spent out of the game.

“At this stage, we’ve got good numbers, our 18s is probably our strongest numbers, our 18s and our Women’s,” Hall said.

“Our first grade side we’ve got the numbers, reserves we might scrape by but there’s been people hanging back waiting to see what happens and I fully understand that.

“Now’s the time that they need to say we’re in, because we’re back, we just need the names on paper, it’s what Group 4 has required of us.”

If Reserve Grade is an issue however, Hall said the Under 18s could again come to the rescue and help fill that team.

“We do have quite a large 18s side and some of these 18 boys, they would be able to back up to Reserve Grade if need be, they’re very capable boys,” she said.

“Hopefully we don’t have to do that, but worst case scenario that option is there, they just have to play 18s first.”

In terms of the team being out of football for so long, Hall said that the town has suffered without the community aspect football brings.

“It’s been a pretty sore point, a lot of us have been in mourning,” she said.

“I know that they did try and bring them back at the back end of 2021, but the problem was, I know at the end of 2021, we had that lockdown in August, we were still really unknown then.

“Then we had the floods, we finished off coming out of COVID with being flooded in for I don’t know how many weeks […] this time last year we were boating people in and out of town.

“We want to bring this back to being a community club, because it [had] gone away from that for a few years.”

Hall also pointed out an interesting aspect of the situation, where Battlers For Bush Footy played a role, after we mentioned Wee Waa as one of 10 towns that needed their footy team to return.

“We did get pointed to your page [and] that article, it did push us further, we’d already been discussing it amongst ourselves but yeah that was pretty much the ‘oh well let’s do it’ [moment],” she said.

The Panthers’ 2024 preparations are in full swing, with impromptu training sessions in the spring heat and barbecues being held every fortnight, and delegates having travelled to the recent Group 4 AGM in Tamworth to all but confirm their entry into the competition.

The club will return to the playing field in Round One of the Group 4 competition when it kicks off in April next year.

Cover Photo: Wee Waa footballers training on Cook Oval (Credit: Wee Waa Senior Panthers Facebook)