Northern Inland Premier League season to take full flight this weekend following a rain-affected season opener
The 2024 Northern Inland Premier League campaign got underway last weekend but there was only one game played as rain wreaked havoc in the opening round.
Only the Tamworth sides from the Southern Conference were scheduled to play in round one, with the Northern Conference teams and Southern Conference newcomers Namoi United all dealt round one byes.
North Companions and Hillvue Rovers got on at Marius Street and it was Northies who scored the first win of the year as they prevailed 2-1. The fixtures at Riverside were both called off though, with South United to take on Tamworth FC and Moore Creek to challenge Oxley Vale Attunga at a later date.
It’s all systems go this Saturday with six matches scheduled to be contested across three Northern Inland towns, and the excitement is certainly building.
Inverell FC are at home when they welcome South Armidale United to the Inverell Sporting Complex, while the Armidale matches see Norths United challenge Armidale City Westside at Phil Wheaton Oval and Demon Knights host Moore Creek at Rologas. There will be three matches played in Tamworth as Riverside hosts games between Oxley Vale Attunga and Tamworth FC on 3B and South United and Namoi United on 3A while North Companions host East Armidale United at Marius Street.
All 1st Grade games are scheduled to kick off at 3pm and Reserve Grade at 1pm.
Hillvue Rovers will have to wait until round three to bounce back from their opening-round loss as they sit out with the bye on Saturday.
This season is quite a unique one in that the introduction of Inverell and Namoi United has strengthened the competition and has also seen it grow to 13 teams in each division.
The teams are split into two conferences – with six in the Northern Conference and seven in the Southern Conference. Teams will play against all opponents in their own conference twice and the teams in the other conference once during the 2024 campaign, and the three top-ranked teams from each conference will then contest a six-team finals series.
In what has been touted as the match of the round this Saturday, a blockbuster contest between the 2023 Northern Inland Premier League champions South Armidale United and the 2023 Namoi Premier League champions and 2024 Johnson Cup winners Inverell is sure to entertain.
The two sides have already met once this year and it was Inverell who got the job done on home soil when they prevailed 4-1 in the fourth preliminary round of the Australia Cup.
Damien Schutz’s men won their fifth-round fixture as well to lock in a spot in the final eight of the whole of Northern NSW Football, and they were also crowned champions of the 2024 Johnson Cup to continue what has been a phenomenal pre-season.
Inverell are also entering the new season off the back of two successful years after they took the Namoi Premier League by storm in 2022 and 2023, ending Narrabri FC’s dominance and winning back-to-back grand finals as well as one minor premiership.
That all combined has seen many players and officials from across the 12 other clubs in the NIPL label Inverell as either favourites or dark horses heading into the new season.
“That’s probably not what we wanted. It would have been nice to go in as the underdog and the new kid,” Schutz said of his side’s high praise from around the region.
“We’ve set the bar high for ourselves with our Cup run and the Johnson Cup, so we just have to maintain that level for the rest of the year now.
“We’re very keen. From what we’ve seen so far there’s some quality opposition out there and we’re excited to be a part of it.
“Pre-season has been good. The guys got in sort of late November and started working on their fitness, and then having the Cup run like we did meant we got a few games under our belt. We also used the Johnson Cup to trial a few new blokes in the team and that worked well.
“I think South Armidale will be different this weekend from the Cup game for sure. Adam (Ramage) is a good coach and he will have worked a few things out and identified a few of our strengths, and they’ll target those, I suspect.”
Another highly-anticipated game in round two is South United’s clash against the other competition newcomers Namoi United.
South United finished ranked 10th on an 11-team ladder last year and are hoping to improve and develop in 2024, while the Namoi United side sees some of the best players from Narrabri, Wee Waa and Moree team up for a crack at the big league.
Both are hoping for a fast start on Saturday and their coaches are particularly looking to see their players take onto the field what they have been working on across the pre-season.
South United’s coach this year is their goalkeeper Daniel York, a club stalwart who signed up as a five-year-old and has played for the Lightning every year since, with the exception of two seasons at Quirindi.
He is looking forward to stepping up to a more senior role with the club this year and is hoping his side can put their best foot forward week in and week out.
“It’s my first year coaching seniors, but I’ve done a couple of junior teams before,” he said.
“I’ve taken on more of a senior role this year at the club with a good core group of people around me. We have a bit of a leadership team in this squad, and I thought coaching was an exciting challenge that I wanted to take on.
“We’ve taken on a lot of younger players and made a few signings this year, and we just want to be competitive. Everyone wants to be there when the finals series comes around, and we’d love to be there.
“I think this year the competition has gotten stronger, which is always good to see. As long as we can be competitive in every game, I’ll be happy.
“Pre-season has been really good and we’ve been getting very good numbers to training. Quite consistently we’ve been getting between 30 and 40 at training. We’ve had a couple of trial games, the Australia Cup and Johnson Cup, so the boys are ready to go.
“I expect it should be a great game this weekend. We played against them a couple of years ago in the Johnson Cup and had a great battle with them, and I know they’re a great bunch of blokes.”
Namoi United’s major task across the pre-season has been bringing together players from three separate towns who were formerly rivals in the Namoi Premier League and ensuring they learn each other’s playing styles and gel as a unit.
Coach Neil Brayshaw is confident that they have achieved that, and he and his players are keen to kick off their 2024 campaign.
“I’m very excited. It’s a new competition and a new group of players. We’re looking forward to playing against new teams and seeing the standard that we have to step up to,” Brayshaw said.
“I think we have the depth and quality there to give every game a crack.
“Our goal, which we spoke about on Tuesday night, is to make the finals. It’s going to be very hard because we’re in a tough Southern Conference with the Tamworth sides. Every game will be tough but we want to be there come finals time. Anything can happen from there.
“With the gelling as a group, we’re building each week. We had a golf day during our bye round and spent the afternoon together, and everyone enjoyed each other’s company. On the field we’re gelling as a side. It’s a challenge to gel three teams into one but I’m very happy with how we’re going. We’re getting better each week.
“This weekend, I want us to take onto the field what we’ve been doing at training. I want the guys to not give up and to have a solid attitude in defence and attack, and I want everyone to give 100 per cent, whether they are out there for 10 minutes, 20 minutes or the whole game.”
Another interesting battle in round two on Saturday is the Armidale derby at Phil Wheaton Oval between Norths United and Armidale City Westside.
Like York at South United, both coaches in this game are experienced glovemen. Norths United’s Tim Tarrant will be in the coach’s box after he keeps in the reserve grade game, while Armidale City Westside’s Anthony Gray will be between the sticks in the main game after making the decision to come out of retirement in 2024.
These two teams were at opposite ends of the table last year as Norths finished last and Westside placed third, and they both want to climb the ladder this season.
For Gray, the way Westside crashed out of the finals with a 3-0 loss in the minor semi-final against Moore Creek was a learning experience and is motivating his side heading into a new season.
“We’re really excited for the season to start. We were disappointed with how our season finished last year,” Gray said.
“We were a bit underwhelming in that we gave away points during the season when we shouldn’t have and obviously when it came down to the knockout part of the season we didn’t perform.
“It was disappointing but we’ll look to rectify that this year. We want to be in finals football again and I want to see us actually push to that next level. We’re a young squad still, and last year’s finals series opened our eyes up to how to play football when you get to those stages in the competition.
“We’ve had a good pre-season and we’re ready to go. We’ve been going for about two months now and we attended the Nambucca Strikers carnival and we performed quite well there and had some decent results.
“We played in the Australia Cup against Northern Storm and they scored in the last minute to beat us 2-1. I thought we went well in that game; we were minutes away from a shootout”
Gray said that he was expecting a different Norths side to last year come Saturday and predicted that they would be hard to break down, a challenge that his side will have to overcome.
The 2024 season is a rebuilding one at Norths United, with Tarrant excited to instil some high standards and values at the club during his first season as the first grade coach. He believes he has a talented team that can push other sides all the way to the final whistle each weekend.
“Pre-season has been very strong and we have good numbers,” Tarrant said.
“I can’t wait for the season to start. We’ve worked really hard.
“We’re probably two weeks and a trial underdone – we’ve only had the one trial against OVA – but we’re going to be competitive and work hard and try to play the football that we want to play.
“Hopefully results come our way. Probably not straight away but as we build into the season.
“We’ve spent a little bit of time focusing on team culture and we’ve set a vision statement that we want to be proud of ourselves, our football and our club. If we can realise our vision statement and play some positive football and be proud of what we do, then that will be a successful year.”
As far as the other games are concerned, there are many questions that local football fans are eager to have answered tomorrow afternoon.
Can North Companions make it two from two at home against East Armidale United or will the visitors start their season off with a win? And can East Armidale get over the hump this year and qualify for finals football after finishing fifth on the ladder last year?
Will Oxley Vale Attunga continue their dominant NIPL winning streak over fellow Tamworth clubs and get their minor premiership defence off to a flying start or will Tamworth FC show that this is the year they will return to their former glory.
And are Moore Creek the real deal this year as a positive pre-season under new coach Andy Cygan would suggest, or will Demon Knights spoil their start to the season on home soil at Rologas?