Tallon Smith

Reigning Group 16 Premiers the Snowy River Bears have made a shock switch ahead of the 2025 season after deciding to depart their previous competition for the George Tooke Shield.

With the vast majority of their players moving on next season, many to the Cooma Stallions, the club made the painstaking call to move to second division footy beginning in the new year.

The club released a statement on their Facebook page on Wednesday morning confirming the news of their imminent departure.

“The Snowy River Bears RLFC would like to officially announce that we will be departing the Group 16 competition and joining the George Tooke Shield competition for the 2025 season and into the foreseeable future,” the statement read.

“Due to a large number of our 2024 premiership winning players moving on to other clubs and competitions to further challenge themselves in their playing careers, we are unable to field two full teams next season.

“The Snowy River Bears RLFC look forward to joining the George Tooke Shield competition for the 2025 season. This is a single team competition and will allow the club to further develop our younger players in a slightly different style of competition.

“Our loyal supporters will still have the opportunity to come and watch us play both at home in Jindabyne and in and around the Canberra region and satellite towns such as Bungendore, Googong, Harden, Boorowa and more.

“The Snowy River Bears RLFC would like to extend our appreciation to all of our incredible supporters, sponsors and fantastic volunteers for your understanding and support throughout this change and we look forward to seeing you all at the upcoming 2025 season.”

Incoming Bears President Jason Dyball said that the changes were necessary, with the club struggling to hold on to enough of their players going into next season.

“We’re moving on to the George Tooke Shield mainly because it’s a single team comp, so it’s no first and reserves, it’s just the one team,” he said.

“We’ve had quite a lot of our First Grade players move on to other things, they want to go test themselves and play at a higher level.

“Some guys have just moved away, and we’ve got quite a few have entered the Canberra comp, I think a few boys went to the [Belconnen] Sharks, there’s a few at Gungahlin, and few went to the [Queanbeyan] Roos. 

“So we’ve lost quite a lot of talent there and we just didn’t think we’d be able to field a competitive First Grade side in Group 16.”

The major focus next season according to Dyball is on developing and promoting the club’s younger players to senior football.

“We’ve gone to George Tooke and we’re going to focus on all our local players and some of our younger guys who were struggling to develop them in Group 16 because the level of competition is just a little bit tough for some of our 17, 18-year-olds,” he said. 

“It’s always been a bit of an issue in Jindabyne trying to get numbers, we’ve got to battle with people who do snow sports and stuff like that, a lot of guys play for the rugby union club as well. 

“We just put a bit of a focus on staying a bit more local and trying to develop our junior players in that single competition.

“It would have been ideal for us if we could have just run a Reserve Grade side in Group 16, but they don’t really allow it, you have to have a First Grade side.”

Another aspect of the decision has been the cost of signing players to fill the void left by departing stars, with the club’s unique position in the ski fields contributing to the fact that they have to pay above market value to attract players to live in such an expensive town.

“It’s a financial choice as well, it’s quite expensive to run a First Grade club in Group 16,” Dyball said.

“There’s a lot of paid players, it’s quite a challenging competition. 

So, if you’re not paying blokes, they’ll just go play for another club where they will get paid.”

As for the travel burden next season, Dyball said it won’t be that much more compared to some of the trips the club were already making in Group 16, with the club up there with Hay, Albury and Nyngan for high travel times.

“Binalong, Boorowa or Harden, they’re no further than, they’re probably actually a little bit closer than Batemans Bay, which is one of the clubs we travel to in Group 16,” he said.

“If you take Cooma and Bombala away, Bombala is probably an hour, Cooma is only 40 minutes, just about every other club is two hours plus away. 

“Bega, Eden, Moruya, Narooma, they’re all solid hauls down the mountain and up the coast.

“It’s not a huge concern for us to travel, to be honest, because you’ve got Bungendore, they’re only two and a bit hours, UC Stars, [North] Canberra, that’s two hours, Harden’s probably the furthest.

“It’s not really an issue.”

The Bears’ decision to join the competition takes the number of club in the competition back up to nine, after the departure of Cootamundra back to Group Nine was offset by the inclusion of Googong a month ago.

The club made a similar move after winning the Group 16 competition in 1996, joining the George Tooke Shield for the 1997 and 1998 seasons before entering recess.

The club then returned to Group 16 in 2017 and won a Reserve Grade title a couple of years later before being promoted to the First Grade competition.

Cover Photo: Kate Dyball