By Tallon Smith

Rugby league continues to boom in Albury-Wodonga after the formation of a new club, the Border Bears RLC, was announced in late December.

Based in West Albury and affiliated with the Goulburn Murray Premiership, the Bears are the twin cities’ fourth rugby league club, along with fellow GMP outfits CSU Mud Dogs and Wodonga Wombats, and Group 9 side Albury Thunder.

Inaugural Bears President Daniel Florence said that the formation of the club was driven by the large number of people involved in other now-defunct clubs in the area looking to get back on the field.

“It pretty much just came together with a bunch of people from previous teams around here that we’d played with,” he said.

“We had the idea of coming up with a different team running forward.

“[Out of] the name Border Bears, the name Border is just to try and incorporate both sides of the Border and the local area, and Bears, I just grew up a North Sydney Bears supporter so it was a simple fix for me.”

Speaking at the club’s official launch barbecue at Wodonga’s Willow Park on Saturday, the Bears President said that the club is aiming to form sustainably and simply compete in 2024, and isn’t looking to go all out for immediate success.

“This year isn’t so much about trying to go out and win a premiership or anything like that, it’s about trying to build that team culture and make it a long lasting club to be around for years to come,” Florence said.

“We’re gonna be competitive, but we’re not going to be chasing premierships this year.”

Regarding players, Florence said the club has the numbers for the season ahead and is now looking at other details such as finding a home base for the year.

“We’re definitely going to have a male and a female team, so females with the league tag, and males are doing the senior tackle,” he said.

“At the moment, we haven’t locked in a field just yet, we’re leaning towards the one at West Albury [Haydon Park], down near Bonnie Doon Park.”

With the season set to kick off in April, the club is racing the clock to be ready for Round 1.

However Bears secretary Cara Fulmer-Lunnon said the club is building positively and quickly ahead of their inaugural campaign.

“I think it’s really good for everyone to join and it already feels like a good atmosphere and [it’s] bringing everyone together, and that’s the main part of it.”

“It’s an awesome turnout already, we weren’t really sure how many were going to come due to the weather and so forth, but I couldn’t ask for anything better really, it’s such a good turnout today.”

Fulmer-Lunnon said that the social media response has been amazing for the fledgling outfit, which translated into a surprisingly good turnout at the club’s launch day.

“I already know that out on our social media pages that we’ve had a lot of interest and we’ve also had a lot of other clubs around the Albury-Wodonga region and surrounding [areas] reach out to us, like our page, share our things on Facebook [and] really help build it,” she said.

“Albury-Wodonga is so big for their sporting community, and I think that’s what helps push everyone to bring more sporting clubs and organisations into it.

“There’s just that many sporting communities and everyone gets around it and behind it, and I think it’s definitely something that’s going to keep growing.”

The Bears’ inclusion brings the Goulburn Murray Premiership’s teams total to eight, after the formation of the Shepparton Eagles and return of Tumbarumba’s men’s side also building on the five clubs that competed last season.

The Border has seen many clubs come and go in recent years, with the Westside Brothers, Murray River Warriors, Bonegilla Gorillas and Wodonga Storm having competed in the Goulburn Murray/Murray Cup competition in recent seasons.

This is in addition to the region’s former Group 13 clubs, the Albury Wanderers, East Albury Magpies, Wodonga Bears, Albury Roos and Albury Blues, the latter of which became the Albury Thunder club which competes in Group 9.