Sport
16 September, 2024
Gladiators set sights on 2025 season
THE Mareeba Gladiators are fired up for next season, already negotiating coach Chris Sheppard’s continued leadership, exploring recruitment opportunities, reviewing infrastructure upgrades, preparing for pre-season training and building on the talent of the young men and women coming through the club.
Looking to 2025, the club hopes to have Sheppard stay on as the A grade coach for his leadership and “unrivalled skill set”.
“I really hope Shep stays, we’re currently working through negotiations with him,” Gladiators club president Shaun Fincham said.
“My view is that his experience and skill set is unrivalled and he offers plenty off the field that goes largely unnoticed too.”
The club undergoes recruitment processes at the end of each season to continue as a competitive force within the competition.
“Recruitment of players to our A grade playing group is currently being explored.
“As a club we acknowledge that this recruitment is necessary to challenge the top teams, however, we will be selective around who we approach.
“We will target good players who are good people,” Fincham said.
The club will also be working with external stakeholders to review the possibility of important infrastructure upgrades.
“The club has had strong leadership in the past, it’s because of this that upgrades are possible.
“In order to grow the club, lighting upgrades on both fields and dressing shed upgrades are important, not only for our staff and players but also for other clubs who travel here when we have home games.
“We will work with external stakeholders to achieve these goals.”
The club will begin pre-season training in the coming weeks to ensure that they are well-prepared and ready to compete when the 2025 season rolls around.
“Our pre-season last year was largely non-existent, for a number of reasons.
“As the president of the club that responsibility was mine and I accept the constructive criticism around that.
“What I can say is we will be better prepared for the 2025 season and I expect pre-season training to start within the next few weeks.
“This will ensure we’re not undone and ready to go in 2025”, Fincham said.
Also, some of the younger players will have the opportunity to move up into the men’s divisions and have the chance to prove themselves.
“There’s plenty of great young players coming through the ranks and because of that I’d hate to single anyone out, but there is a lot of talent here at the club,” Fincham said.
“But more importantly, we need to get our recruitment and preseason preparation right for next season.”
With the great success of the U17 girls’ grand final win, the club is proud to have these young women representing Mareeba.
The girls took on an undefeated Innisfail Leprechauns in this season’s grand final to win their second consecutive premiership.
With U17 being the highest age group for women’s rugby league at Mareeba and following their second grand final victory in a row, the club is hopeful this will encourage women in the community to join the club and get a women’s team up and running.
“Winning the U17 competition was a really good achievement for this group of young ladies.
“The team currently sits in the junior competition and they have a great coaching group around them, it would be terrific to see the whole team progress into the senior ranks.
“Having a senior women’s team is definitely a progression we would love to see, the club would welcome and support this development greatly,” Fincham said.
