CASTERTON Sandford’s first full run on the park has club officials confident of a successful Limestone Coast football season both on and off the field in 2025.
The Cats lined up for their first practice match against Naracoorte on Friday night and despite the warm weather, charged out of the starting blocks with a renewed player fitness and teamwork evident from the first bounce.
With a line of emerging talent from the junior ranks, including Ollie Foster, Sam Craig, Archie Lane and Jedd Rhook, who all put their mark on Friday night’s match, as well as the products of clever recruiting over the off-season, Cat president, Shane Foster said he was excited about where the club could go in 2025.
“It was certainly nice to watch, to see how fit and organised the squad is and the depth of players,” Foster said.
“They were able to work and manage the rotations really easily, spell players so they continued to work the footy well for the whole game.
“There’s real benefit showing there from a big pre-season and I’m sure the rewards will come.”
Foster said the appointment of new signing, Colby Munro, to the right hand of senior coach, Jarrod O’Brien, had seen a huge lift in the side and several other key signings had slotted well into the line-up.
“Sam Tooley is a great addition to that side, with his job he’s not been able to get to a lot of trainings, but he’s great with the younger kids.
“Jack Thompson, he’s a natural leader and a real presence on the ground.”
Michael Krieger also returns to the Cats line-up in 2025, but a minor injury from a training session last week saw him relegated to the sidelines for Friday’s game.
And with the return of footy comes the return of the Cats’ faithful to the park and a big year off the ground, for the Cats.
“We’re coming into the 150th year this year, it’s exciting, everybody’s getting excited and you only have to look at the crowd on Friday night to see that anticipation,” Foster said.
“We ran out of tucker at three-quarter-time and had to ring Ash and Sandy at the butcher’s to get another 100 snags and hamburgers.
“We have got the new lights around the ground, the Naracoorte players were very impressed with them, did not have any issues playing under them.
“In the clubrooms, I guess everything has a silver lining and since the storm … the new carpets have just been put in and we had the netballers and footballers put their hands up last week to help move the furniture back in.
“We already had the new kitchen under way, which is virtually completed and we’d re-done the bathrooms.
“So we go into this big year, this big reunion event, with completely re-vamped clubrooms, which will be great.
“We’re hoping to finalise a few more things and then plan the big celebration around mid-August.
“We want to make sure we do it justice and really celebrate the club’s history.”
The Cats line-up for two more practise matches over the next two weeks, re-visiting old Western Border territory when they head to Portland this Friday night to take on the Tigers, before hosting the Hamilton at Island Park the following week.
