By Peter Argent
With a winning culture from the Orange Tigers in Central West Football League, Nathan Pearce takes over at West Broken Hill Robins as their new senior coach for the 2023 campaign.
After a 213 A-grade game career which yielded a pair of flags, Pearce coached at the Tigers for a decade, with the fruits of his labour including five A-grade premierships in that competition.
Pearce also engineered a title in the Broken Hill women’s competition in 2019 at the West Robins as well.
“I have actually coached the men’s team before for a short period,” Pearce explained.
“At the back end of the ’18 season I was the interim coach for five games, but this will be officially my first full season in charge.”
When asked about the difference between coaching men’s and women’s, Pearce confirmed the only part he found was the use of terminology when your talking was varied, but the training style and skill drills were very similar.
Pearce explained his philosophies are based around three key pillars – attitude, planning and commitment to each role.
“I believe these are the building blocks to success. When I was coaching in the Central West (League) it was a nine-team competition, and there is some uniqueness to coaching in a four-team town.
“We will be looking to enjoy both on field and off-field success at the club. My assistant coaches are Chris Johnson, Michael Thornbry and Judd Carpenter, while ‘BJ’ Campbell will look after the stats.”
The clubs endured a number of injuries at the start of the 2022 campaign, but have already started working hard on their recruiting campaign.
“We have picked up former Gold Coast AFL player Tim Sumner who we will be looking to play a role as a key forward for us.”
A strongly built Indigenous talent, Summer also played SANFL league football for Woodville West Torrens before he was drafted, and then with Glenelg afterwards.
“Defender Jordan Tonkin is returning to West, while we have also secured the services of Brad Rowe from Happy Valley in the Southern Competition in SA and Paul Jenkins from Central West and Canberra football,” he said.
“A key area is working on our fitness over the pre-season. That actually started on Monday, November 21.”
Pearce who works as a service coordinator for Epiroc is well aware of the gap between the previous A-grade flag at the Robins.
It has been 32 years, back in the winter of 1990 since West Broken Hill were the ‘Kings” of Silver City men’s football. That September day, West defeated South 19.10 (124) to 18.10 (118) in a high scoring six-point thriller.
The Robins have played in Grand Finals in 2000 and 2007, being bridesmaids to North both times, so this season is shaping up to be a very interesting one.
