Wagga Tigers will possess the most potent midfield in the Riverina League this season after signing Albury on-baller Brayden O'Hara.
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Just a day after welcoming back former coach Shaun Campbell, Tigers added O'Hara and Albury teammates Jake Gaynor and Shaun Driscoll.
O'Hara is considered arguably the best player in the Ovens and Murray League and has won four premierships from six seasons at Albury Tigers.
The 32-year-old's close friendship with Tigers junior Jake Gaynor paved the way for the move, after the cancellation of the Ovens and Murray competition last week.
O'Hara, who joined Albury from the SANFL, had been in hot demand over the past week but it was Gaynor who had already sold him on a move to Robertson Oval.
"Little Jakey Gaynor, he lived with me for probably the last four months. He come to me the other week, if the O&M shut down would you come to Wagga Tigers," O'Hara said.
"That's the main thing. Jakey talking to me about it four or five weeks ago. I get along with Jakey really well. He's like a little brother, my kids love him as well, so I wanted to come up and play footy with him up there, at his home club. I'm looking forward to it, I know a few of the boys there so it should be good."
Gaynor himself will be a huge recruit in his own right. He returns after two seasons at Ovens and Murray level, where he won Albury's best and fairest in his first year, the club's 2018 premiership season.
Driscoll had joined Albury after starring in Tigers' premiership last September but will return before a game has been played.
O'Hara believes there is still plenty to get out of the shortened season.
"I'm looking forward to it. A lot of people down here have said is it a relevant season but I don't see it that way," he said.
"It's a season that everyone will talk about for a long time when you think about it. With all the COVID stuff, it will always be remembered as the team that won it in that year.
"Everyone will be going 100 per cent and I'm looking forward to it."
While the Riverina League is a relative unknown to some of the competition's recruits, O'Hara is well aware of the environment he's heading into.
"Yeah I knew a fair bit. Even when I was in Adelaide I knew a little bit about it because of Luke Habel and Sammy Milne, those boys playing at Ganmain," he said.
"It will be good for the competition, to try and get as many good players as you can coming into the comp. It will be a good spectacle obviously, I've heard rumours of other players, I'm not sure if it's true or not but some good players from the O&M coming so it will be good to play against them at opposition clubs and see how we go."
Wagga Tigers president Anthony Lyons was thrilled to sign a player of O'Hara's calibre, as well as welcome back Gaynor and Driscoll.
"To get someone of Brayden's quality and class will benefit our local young fellas and they will learn a lot about football playing alongside him," Lyons said.
"I was resigned to never seeing Shaun again. I think he'll play SANFL, and could even as a 23, 24-year-old could get picked up by a (AFL) club. That's how good I rate him. And Jakey, I didn't think he would come back until he was 28, 29 or 30."
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