Central Coast Rugby League: Umina Beach Bunnies celebrate return to senior football

After a six-year hiatus, one of the Central Coast’s most iconic rugby league clubs is back playing senior football again.

When it comes to local footy, the lower grades don’t often get too much attention.

But on Saturday afternoon MacKillop Oval at Kincumber will play host to a very special moment when the Umina Beach Bunnies return to senior football in the open grade of the Central Coast Community Rugby League.

The Bunnies – who count NRL veteran Chris Heighington, current New Zealand Warriors player Brayden Wiliame and reigning Dally M medallist Nicho Hynes among its former juniors – will take on Erina in what will be the club’s first senior game since 2017 – and first in the Central Coast competition since 2015.

“It’s massive. More than what I can explain,” says co-coach and former Bunnies player Dean Young.

“It’s really great to be back. It’s just about seeing the colours and the team back out on the field.”

Several former players like John Hickey have come back to join the Bunnies’ coaching staff.

In true local style, the returning Umina side features a couple of former players, now well and truly in veteran status, while former Bunnies like Young himself, fellow co-coach Marc Matthews, who coached the club to a grand final in 2012, and club legends Todd Maloney and John Hickey are back in the fray as part of the coaching staff.

But Young says that’s not where the red and green ties to the current squad stop.

“They’re mostly younger blokes in their early 20s who played in the juniors, but then when Umina folded they went off to play rugby or at other clubs. But now that the Bunnies are back, they’ve come from everywhere,” he said.

Indeed, the return of a senior side in the open grade comp, nominally the third division of Central Coast football, has provided a pathway for juniors to continue with the club.

The long road back

The Bunnies’ path back to senior football has been a convoluted and unpredictable one.

A successful club in the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, Umina last played in the Central Coast senior competition in 2015. While the club didn’t field any senior teams in 2016, they returned the following year in the lower Hunter competition, but pulled out halfway through that season.

“It was sad,” says Young.

“It’s hard to put your finger on it, but I think in general the game on the Coast took a hit in terms of interest from the public: player numbers dropped off, kids from the age of 15 or 16 stopped coming through – they had other things to do, social media was big. It was like society changed a little bit around that time and footy was one of the things that took the hit.

“Financially, Umina’s been a club that has always had local sponsorship, we’ve never had a leagues club or major sponsor and rely on community support and volunteers, so it was a bit of everything: players, the juniors weren’t coming through, financially we probably struggled.”

Umina last won the Central Coast first grade grand final in 2005. Picture: MARK SCOTT

While some might just see it as a football club, Young says the closure of the Bunnies’ seniors had a sizeable impact on the local community.

“I think a lot of people struggled when the club went out, because it was some people’s lives: they grew up from under 6s playing for Umina, then all the way through to their late-30s playing grade.

“They spent their whole life there with their mum and dad and that’s all they really knew. So when the club went it affected some people’s identity and they struggled really bad.

“I knew people who were lost for a while there. They grew up their whole lives playing for the Bunnies and probably saw themselves as being one of the older fellas helping on the barbecue and watching the next generation. But that didn’t happen and they didn’t know what to do with themselves for a few years.”

Building from the ground up

With the seniors on what many believed was a permanent hiatus, in recent years some Bunnies old boys got together to help out the junior side of the club.

“We’ve got a lot of ex-first graders down there coaching, we’ve got a development plan in place, high-performance academies in place, big sponsorship money in the club and we’ve really turned it into a classy outfit of a club,” says Young.

“From the end of last year to now we’ve gained 70-80 more players in the junior club. The right people jumped on the committee and put these plans in place.”

Umina’s junior club has been thriving in recent years. Picture: Peter Clark

And with things on the junior side going gangbusters, Young says this excitement and enthusiasm sparked a revival on the senior level.

“Off the back of that the senior team just popped up. It just kind of happened,” he said.

“It all started from the work at the junior level, and I think in the past Umina has forgot about the juniors and tried to buy players to come in and be successful, but we’re trying to build it from the ground up so it’s around longer and is more sustainable.”

An unlikely partnership

And while early in the pre-season it looked like the Bunnies had enough numbers to form a senior team, it took another stroke of luck – and a healthy dash of goodwill – to actually make that happen.

The return has been made possible thanks to an agreement with the Kincumber Colts, which will see the Bunnies take their spot in the open grade competition.

“The timing of it was perfect for us, because on the back of all the stuff we’ve been doing with the junior committee the senior interest sort of followed, and Kincumber were just starting to go into a bit of a re-build phase and probably didn’t have the numbers they had in previous years to field three grades,” said Young.

“I approached them and they said, ‘Ok, let’s have a few beers.’ So we went back to the clubhouse and talked – it fit them and it fit us perfectly.”

Umina's Todd Maloney (centre) is back helping the club as part of the coaching staff.

For old Bunnies like Young, who spent many seasons playing against the Colts, it has been a pleasantly strange experience to work so well with their rivals.

“In 2012 Kincumber and Umina played each other in the first grade grand final. They had a really good rivalry, they beat each other one apiece and then played in the grand final. Now fast forward a decade later and Kincumber are helping Umina get back on their feet,” he said.

“They’ve been huge for us, so we’re very thankful to Kincumber.”

They’re working together now, but Kincumber and Umina clashed in the 2012 first grade grand final.

Ahead of its first game back on the senior front, the club will be taking a slow and steady approach to the future and doesn’t have any grand ambitions of winning comps or climbing up the divisions anytime soon.

But with the red and green set run onto the field again on Saturday, Young is just happy to have a team out on the park to give the long-suffering fans something to cheer about.

“The Umina Bunnies in their peak probably had the biggest supporter base on the Coast, we used to draw the biggest crowds – they’re really passionate supporters.

“And when they folded I would speak to people in the street who’d say, ‘I’d do anything to watch the Bunnies play one more game.’”

The rugby league gods must be shining on those Bunnies fans, because on Saturday the Umina faithful will get that chance once again.

The Umina Beach Bunnies take on the Erina Eagles on Saturday at 1pm at McKillop Oval, Kincumber