Brothers keen to keep building as long-awaited first grade comeback arrives

Some 622 days since their last game, Brothers will return to the field against cross-town rivals Kangaroos at Equex Centre.

In February last year, Brothers made the difficult decision to remove their first grade team from the Group Nine competition, citing mass player departures as the primary reason.

And true to their word, Brothers are back in 2024, albeit with a completely different look.

The road back has not been easy but former Brothers president Zac Wilson, currently the club treasurer, admitted it will be a satisfying moment watching the team run out on Saturday.

"It will be pretty special," Wilson said.

"The boys seem pretty keen to rip in and make a good go of it."

Another past president is Mitch Dunn. He is part of the club's new-look board of management that has replaced to role of president.

He said the road back has certainly been a testing one.

"I reckon I've thrown it in about five or six times," Dunn said.

"We're not ego driven, even back a number of years. No one's doing it because they think they can do a better job, we're sort of doing it because no one else will. The door's always open for more people to come and help and throw ideas around.

"There have been times I thought it might not happen, are we flogging a dead horse? But everyone that's been down there and hands on has always been positive."

The most significant piece in the comeback puzzle came together in October when they secured former NRL player and current Riverina coach Aaron Gorrell to coach the club.

Dunn pinpointed that as the moment things started to turnaround.

"Goz has been a blessing," Dunn said.

"He's been the most positive I'd say. It's hard when you've been scraping and clawing for a number of years and obviously Goz is new to the scene and has fresh ideas and has that positive outlook, which has been refreshing and has kept us going I suppose.

"It's been a lot of people, there's been a lot of collaboration with the junior club as well. Naturally if we don't have a senior club there's nowhere for those juniors to come through to. Benny Howard has also recently stepped up and taken a lot of responsibility. But Goz has been brilliant."

Once Gorrell was in place, the club expected a number of former players to gradually come home. What they didn't see coming was a number of ex-Brothers players to stay at their 2023 clubs.

For Brothers, it was just another hurdle to clear.

"It's been hard," Dunn said.

"You get blokes agree and then they disagree. Even some of our juniors, they want to be part of somewhere successful and that's fine, I understand that too. They want a quick fix and not necessarily hang around and build that up.

"I fully sympathize with Jimmy (Hay) for instance. It's been a battle. I'm sure he enjoys just showing up and training and being part of a competitive side too. If anything he probably deserves it to be honest, but it still doesn't make it any easier to see him running around in different colours.

"More credit to the boys that have returned and want to try and be part of that."

Wilson said Brothers' decision to go international in their recruitment campaign wasn't by design.

"We've had to go pretty international to get a team," Wilson explained.

"We've got some blokes who have come back like Jordy Little, who didn't play last year, Bas Blackett has come back, he's a good bloke on and off the field. He and Jordy were really the ones who took the plunge and committed first off to get things rolling so that was good.

"We had a list of blokes we went through before Christmas and had a lot of blokes commit then change their mind, juniors."

Dunn said it's made the club focus on building a bright new future.

"We're starting from scratch," he said.

"It's not like Goz has the luxury of coming in and picking and choosing.

"We've got to start somewhere and I suppose it's on us as a club or community to build that up and make it a place that Goz wants to be part of for a few years and see that gradual improvement.

"I know he's super competitive, which is a good thing but he's also realistic too.

"We're not going out there saying we're going to win the comp but we've got two senior sides on the park, which is probably a lot more than a lot of people expected."

Brothers won't only have two senior sides but they are one of just a few Group Nine clubs to boast a full complement of teams for season 2024.

It's something their proud of, and given what unfolded last year, it's been a lot of hard work.

"It was a fair bit of work last year, we had a core group of volunteers that were there last year and helped out and we've gathered a lot more," Wilson explained.

"We had good support from our junior club, from Damien Pembleton, who is president of the juniors, they've been really good. Pembo's helped out doing stuff with recruitment and getting blokes job and stuff like that.

"We've had a lot of support from the old boys. Volunteers who have been away for a few years and stuck their hands up to help out with no kids at the club or anything like that. A lot of them will be there and we've had a lot of good support from our sponsors. It will be good to reward them a little bit with them seeing us back.

"Where we've come from last year to this year, we've got five grades listed for Saturday.

"We've had good support from the junior club to help those under 15s transition into under 16s, we've had some kids come back to the club who didn't play, we didn't have a 16s last year so they've gone elsewhere and played last year but have come back to us to play 18s, which is good.

"We're pretty happy to be fielding all five grades, especially after what happened last year."

Dunn explained that there was a lot of pressure involved in getting first grade back.

"If anything, it wasn't necessarily pressure from Group Nine, but we were made aware that we had to have first grade this year or we wouldn't be in the competition," he said.

"I attended a meeting and I know there was a number of clubs in support of us regardless of what capacity that we needed to be involved so that was refreshing to hear. Obviously other people have different opinions as well.

"But you're told you need to have first grade and it impacts a whole heap of other people then who have nowhere to play.

"We fully supported Junee when they went through it, we didn't think they would be the last one but we didn't know that we would be next. I don't think we'll be the last either.

"Now we just want to maintain and increase the appeal of the club and getting people involved and wanting to be around it.

"It's been a number of years since we've had a full complement of teams. That's a positive. We're not claiming we're going to do wonderful things but we're starting somewhere and we're just going to keep building on it."

Brothers legend Chris Suckling perhaps put it best when putting into perspective what the club means to rugby league.

"We've just got to keep battling on," Suckling said.

"The way I look at it, if we fold over, I'm lost to football. I'm not going to go to Kangaroos or Southcity.

"You would lose 50 people to football, as such. You can't afford to lose another club because you will lose too many people to the sport."