Rebuilding time for Chatham Wolves hockey

The Wolves won an unprecedented 10 successive premierships before their run ended in last season's grand final where they were beaten by Sharks. However, that was at the end of a truncated season caused by the pandemic lockdown.

The times have a'changed in 2021. Chatham sits at the bottom of the Mid North Coast Hockey League, with a draw being their best result.

They were thumped 5-1 by Sharks last week in a match where captain-coach Adam Birkefeld believes they produced one of their best performances of the year. They followed that up with a 4-2 loss to Taree Tigers, again, where Birkefeld said his young side continued to show improvement.

Birkefeld, Matt Doherty, Trent Hammond and Dylan Turner are among the few survivors from Chatham's recent golden era. But despite the lack of on-field success, Birkefeld said this has been among the most enjoyable campaigns he's been involved with.

At season's start he knew it was going to be a struggle, given the relative youth of his squad.

"There's four or five older players in the team,'' he explained,.

"The rest are aged between 13 and 16.''

Birkefeld said club lost the nucleus of their side to retirement, while Wade Harry, the player of the match in the Chatham's recent grand final win in 2019, is now with Sharks, where he has family connections.

"We always knew our run would come to an end. But I was hoping our older players would stagger their retirements. Unfortunately they all decided to retire at the same time,'' he explained.

So the Wolves are in a rebuilding phase and Birkefeld said that realistically this will take a couple of years.

"There's talent in the side, young blokes like Griff Coleman and Gus and Ben Johnson have really come on this year,'' he said.

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"That's been the enjoyable part, working with the young blokes and helping them improve their game.''

Birkefeld pointed out the core group of players from the premier years came together through juniors together.

"Tigers won five-in-row. We saw their name on the honour board in the clubhouse and we wanted to match that effort,'' he said.

And so it started, with the Wolves becoming perennial premiers.

"Eventually we caught them (Tigers) and just kept going,'' he said.

He realises the Wolves are no chance for a title in the Mid Coast League. However this finishes early next month and the three Manning sides, Chatham, Sharks and Tigers will battle it out for the Manning premiership, with the grand final to be played in September.

"Sharks are the benchmark, they're like we were years back, with a group of players around the 18 and 19 mark. And with Wade (Harry) there they can score a goal from anywhere,'' he said.

However, Birkefeld is confident that 'on our day' Chatham could match it with Tigers.

Either way, he assured they'll be in there trying.

"We've had our good years,'' he said.

"Now we have to build up again. That's our aim.''