TAREE Wildcats president Shannon Hall expects the club would nominate to play in the revamped Football Mid North Coast Zone Premier League next year.
Hall was still waiting to hear details about the competition.
The Wildcats played in the previous incantations of the zone premier league. Taree won what was then known as the Oxley-Manning Premier League back in 2001.
This eventually morphed into the Football Mid North Coast Premier League, where the Wildcats have also enjoyed some premiership success.
The Wildcats joined the Coastal Premier League when it was formed in 2020. However, the club endured a difficult 2022 and failed to win a game in first grade in a season marred by wet weather and COVID problems.
The original intention was to reduce the number of clubs in the CPL from 12 to 10 and the Wildcats were thought to be the FMNC club most likely to be excluded. The CPL has since collapsed (see back page) and will be replaced by the zone premier league to be run by Football Mid North Coast.
If the competition is only going as far as Kempsey then it shouldn't be too difficult to attract players
- Taree Wildcats president Shannon Hall
The zone hopes this will be a first and reserve grade competition stretching from Forster-Tuncurry to Kempsey.
"If that's what it looks like then we'll be nominating for that,'' Hall said.
"If the competition is only going as far as Kempsey then it shouldn't be too difficult to attract players. That was the problem with the CPL for a lot of the players with young families, having to go to Coffs Harbour seven or eight times or whatever we did.''
Hall understands the Wildcats have lost players to the one grade Southern League in the past couple of seasons as they were unwilling to commit to the Coastal Premier League.
"I've only been here a couple of years so I don't know the history, but if those clubs don't nominate for the zone comp, then hopefully those players would be keen to come back to us,'' he said.
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Hall coached the Wildcats last season and is willing to do the job again.
"It depends if anyone else want to do it,'' he said.
"If no one else wants the job then I'll coach again. But obviously being president as well is a lot to take on, so I'll wait and see.''
He expects the Wildcats would start training in late January or early February.
"I've never been one to start training in November. It's a bit frivolous,'' he said.
"You have players involved in other sports, like cricket and it's hot, so it's hard to get players to training. We have blokes playing in Summers Sixes competitions and futsal, so fitness isn't really an issue.''
He's also confident the Wildcats would be competitive in the ZPL.
"From what I know that used to be the case, so I couldn't see why it would be again,'' he said.
