AFTER a long pre-season Nhill Tigers captain Liam Albrecht cannot wait for his side’s first hitout of the year against the Warrack Eagles on Saturday.
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He has played all of his football at the club after starting with AusKick, made his senior debut in 2011 and passed the 100 game mark during the 2017 season.
“The atmosphere here at the club is great,” he said.
“There’s a big social aspect to it because we are a tight-knit community.
“Everyone lives and breathes football – along with all all the other sports on offer at the club.”
This season will be his fourth as captain of the senior football side.
He said it was a big honour to continue to be seen as a leader.
“There are a lot of ex-captains of Nhill who are held in very high regard,” he said. “If I end up doing half as good a job as them then I’ll be happy with it.”
He said he has always enjoyed playing with Ben Pollock while travelling players like Jake Harrap added something, and young guns Ed Pritchard and Sam Bone kept things exciting.
“I watched Ben a lot while I was coming up through the under-14s and under17s – to play alongside him has been fantastic,” he said. “I coached Ed and Sam in the under-17s as well so to watch them grow as players has been great.”
The Tigers rely on travelling players each season in order to be competitive while based out of a small town more than half an hour away from any of the other teams in the Wimmera league.
Albrecht said while it was sometimes difficult to gel as a side because of the distance between players.
“We have our pre-season training camps where we get to meet them and we gel well during that,” he said.
“The big thing for this season is that we’ve got four coming back for their fourth seasons in a row from Adelaide. That’s a real big tick for the club because it shows that they like it, hopefully we can get some more success for them as well.”
During pre-season the focus at Nhill has been on trying to break through for early wins.
Albrecht is confident the the side can go up a level this season under new coach Tim Bone who has implemented stricter roles for players according to their positions.
“He’s been a bit of fresh air coming into the club,” he said. “He’s got no ties to players and has really brought a different perspective.”
He said that a heightened level of competition within the senior squad would leave some people disappointed to miss out on games but meant the team was in a better position.
“We’ve been really keen to get going and it has been on of the best build ups to a season since I’ve been playing seniors,” he said. “I’m just excited to see how we go.”
