Border Mail |
MARK Bresciano, Billy Celeski and Michael Theoklitos.They’re hardly names you’d expect to read at the start of an AFL story, let alone one on the Tallangatta league.
But there’s a link, however tenuous, between those household Australian soccer names and the Rutherglen football club.
And it starts with Nathan Thomas.
He says most people don’t believe him when he tells them, but Thomas was once a prominent player in the Victorian Premier League.
He’s a past player of Bulleen, just like that star trio mentioned above, and won a championship at the club.
He also won a best and fairest at the Essendon Royals.
But with the sport undergoing unprecedented change over the past decade, it’s become increasingly hard for Thomas to prove his past sporting glories to others.
Until he was pressed on the issue yesterday.
“Bulleen doesn’t exist any more and Essendon has merged, folded and come back to life since I was there so when I tell people most think I’ve made it up,” Thomas said with a laugh.
“But yes, I used to play in the national youth league and in the VPL.
“I won a championship at Bulleen and the best and fairest at Essendon Royals the year I left.
“I didn’t start playing footy until I was 27.”
Originally from Wodonga, Thomas, now 34, returned to the Border in 2007 but made himself at home further down the river.
He hasn’t left since.
After a more than serviceable five-year stint at Corowa-Rutherglen, Thomas made the switch to Rutherglen this summer after injuries, age and ability caught up with him.
But none of those factors have restricted him, so far.
Thomas hasn’t missed a game since joining the Cats and is averaging three goals.
“I can’t remember the last time I played six games in a row,” Thomas admitted.
“My hamstrings are like elastic bands.
“I’m not taking anything away from this league but it’s not as intense as the Ovens and Murray.
“The game is still fast in patches but the O and M is another step again.
“You only have to look at all the ex-AFL guys there right now.
“If you’re not up to it, you get found out pretty quickly.”
That’s not the only reason he went bush, though.
As a school teacher in Rutherglen, Thomas soon found himself under the scrutiny of some of his senior students, too.
“A few of the younger boys from Corowa’s under-18s, who I got to know through school, all said they were going back out there,” Thomas said.
“I thought that wasn’t a bad way to go.
“A few of them, including (coach) Darren Hatton’s son, had gone to play their age footy in the O and M but were going back out.
“I knew the club was heading in the right direction and thought it would be great to be a part of.”
All those factors have played a role in the Cats’ hot start to the season that only came to a halt, of sorts, against Mitta United last weekend.
Rutherglen’s still on top of the ladder after five rounds and Thomas said the Cats planned to keep things that way.
And not just this year.
“We’re not after a one-year crack at it,” he said.
