GETTING back to basics, new Tumut coach Eric Smith has no grand plans to lure a swag of imports to the Blues to vie for the Group Nine premiership next season.
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Content with the local lifeblood, Smith yesterday admitted Tumut can produce the goods to compare with the best in Group Nine.
While doing his best to tempt former Tumut boys back to town, Smith declared success in securing former premiership centre Matt Free and five-eighth Greg Crampton for next season.
“There’s a couple of local boys heading back to town which is good, we’re trying to get back relatively most of our local players,” he told The Daily Advertiser yesterday.
“At this stage we’ve got Greg Crampton – who hasn’t played for a few years, he’s been away working in Queensland – and Matt Free is coming back, too – he’s been around the Brisbane area,” he said.
“We’re in talks with a few more boys, but we haven’t got a definite answer.
“Our main priority is to get the local boys back to town, obviously we are looking at sourcing a few players to strengthen the team with a few marquee players, but we haven’t got there yet.
“We haven’t come to terms with anyone and if we wait any longer its more than likely we won’t find them, but right now we want to lure our local boys back.”
Smith, who is set to move back to Tumut after Christmas, is yet to meet most of the players he will be working with next season.
Although the current “crop of young ones” is new to Smith, he said the talent is there to rebuild the proud Group Nine reputation of the club.
“There’s a lot of young guys there and a few older ones that I played with years ago, so it’s going to be a learning experience,” he said.
“In the past five or six years Tumut has been right up there and won a few premierships, so I’m confident if we get the right players back along with the new crop of young ones we can be a competitive team.”
Smith started his playing career with Gundagai in 1999, moving onto Manly Sea Eagles’ Jersey Flegg team the following year and returning to Group Nine in 2003.
It wasn’t until 2005 that he linked with the Blues and experienced a grand final loss to Cootamundra.
Smith is yet to decide a date for the Blues to begin pre[season training, but said preparations are likely to start in January.