Kyneton Tigers countdown to the first bounce

THE countdown clock on the Kyneton Football Club website says it all.

Revved up: Kyneton coach Mark Adamson instruct his troops.

THE countdown clock on the Kyneton Football Club website says it all.

After a season without a senior team, the Tigers are counting down the days, hours, minutes — even the seconds — until the opening bounce of their Round 1 clash with Eaglehawk on April 5.

Kyneton president Rob Waters said the club was proud it had achieved what it set out to do in May last year, at the start of a bleak winter where footy at Tigerland finished after the reserves.

An off-season player drain forced the Tigers to withdraw from the Bendigo Football League seniors last February, with the club fielding only reserves and under-18s in 2013.

“We’ve done it — well, we’ve sort of done it,” Waters told The Weekly Times.

“We haven’t won a game yet but we’ve got a team back on the park.

“We think we’ll put a competitive side out on the ground, and we’re pretty ambitious so we hope to do well.”

The club’s recruiting drive began in earnest in July, soon after the appointment of Mark Adamson as senior coach.

And they weren’t hunting a handful of players — they needed a whole side.

Adamson, who coached BFL rival Golden Square to the first of its four consecutive flags in 2009, stepped down from his assistant coaching role at VFL club Bendigo Gold to take on the Kyneton job.

Waters said the recruiting process had been “incredibly hard”.

“Good country footballers want to be rewarded but they also want to play in a successful side,” he said.

“And it’s hard to sell that when you haven’t got a team.

“I think when Mark first started the job he thought there’d be a number of players who would go with him and none of them did.

“It just made his job harder but it also made him more ­determined.”

In October, Kyneton signed classy midfield duo Michael Rainey and Ryan Carafa from Victorian Amateur Football Association premier division club Old Carey.

Former Port Melbourne VFL-listed midfielder Luke Edmondson joined the Tigers from the Bellarine league in November.

And the club added midfielder-forward Ben Weight­man from Lilydale in January.

The 24-year-old was selected in the Eastern Football League team of the year in 2013 and had previously played with Port Melbourne.

Other notable signings include Harrison Huntly (Gisborne), Dale Ciunik (Sunbury) and Michael Clancy ­(Darley).

Former Hawthorn and North Melbourne player Nathan Thompson, a Kyne­ton export who co-coached the club in 2012, will also return for a handful of matches.

“The work Mark did during that time in July-August and into September and October, travelling off into Melbourne and all over rural Victoria to speak to prospective leads and then follow them up — the country footy version of cold-calling, if you like — it was just outstanding,” ­Waters said.

The Tigers’ first taste of success came in a practice match earlier this month, when they toppled Macedon by 47 points.

“It was a good start,” ­Waters said.

“It’ll be a pretty good ­moment in Round 1 when they run out on the field against Eaglehawk.”