Melton Rugby Union Club’s resurgence continues with the side’s promotion to A-grade in the Victorian Rugby Union competition.
The club is one of four from the B-grade competition to move into A-grade. The Warriors were minor premiers last season, before losing the grand final to Ballarat, 18-13.
Melton vice-president Liam Devlin said the move into A-grade was massive for the club in just their second year back in the competition.
The club folded in 2015 due to a lack of numbers.
“They looked at the clubs from last year and saw how they went,” he said. “The top four sides all moved up.
“The competition is parallel to the metro two division. There’s eight to nine sides in premier division – they each have three sides apiece and they play in the metro competitions.
“All the other clubs [including Melton] fall into the next division. One day, we’d like to have three sides and make the transition into premier grade.
“We’re in the highest grade we can be in at the moment.”
Devlin said there was a lot of changes to last season’s squad as more players were looking to get involved.
“We had a few players from premier division decide to join our club due to the location,” he said,
“We’ve built up standards and we’re now one of the strongest regional sides.
“There’s about a 50-50 split, with about 15-20 new faces at training so far.
“There’s been 35-40 players at training in the pre-season and that’s the biggest we’ve every had.”
Devlin said the club would stick with one side this season and consider adding another side in 2018 or 2019.
He said the club wants to ensure it can sustain the player numbers after not having a team in 2015.
Mike Borrell is back on board as coach, with four senior players stepping up to leadership roles to help Borrell out.
The club will play in two pre-season matches in the lead-up to the season. The first was on Saturday against Footscray, and then they will play last year’s division B-grade premiers Ballarat on March 18.
Devlin said the increase in numbers wasn’t just at senior level – the junior program is also thriving.
“The juniors are going really well,” he said. “We have 25 players in under-16s. The junior numbers are looking better than last year.
“We’re considered the fastest growing club in Victoria, and last season were the seventh biggest club in the Victoria last season.
“Last season, we had about 160 players.
“This year we’re looking at 200 players,” Devlin said. “We’re looking to keep getting bigger and become one of the biggest clubs in the state.”
