Breakers had a season of dominance

The Coffs Breakers enjoyed an outstanding season in 2021. Photo: Green Shoots Marketing

THE Coffs Breakers don’t have any Premiership cups to show for their magnificent 2021 season but club president Jay Guthrie said the year will still be classed as a runaway success.

“From my point of view I never gauge success in premierships, that’s just an end result of a process. The proudest part for me is our process has been good and was an improvement on last year,” Guthrie said.

“If that process stays strong next year and into the future you’re only going to get success.”

Something was clearly right as the Breakers were on track to play in three of the four senior grand finals before the COVID-lockdown hit regional NSW. In fact the club’s senior, women’s and reserve grade teams all finished the season as minor premiers. So good was the the performance that the three Breakers teams played a total of 34 home and away games and won 30 of them.

When the club held its presentation night at the Coffs Harbour Golf Club on October 2, it proudly showed off the three minor premiership trophies it received from the AFL North Coast in recognition of a great season.

Guthrie admitted at the start of the year having three teams finish on top of the ladder was more of a fantasy than a reality. But it wasn’t long after the season started that he thought the club was on the verge of “something special”.

“The women have been on to something special ever since they started. They won the grand final last year but they started with a lot of new players this year but you could tell early they were building towards something special again,” he said.

“The seniors and reserves also had a lot of players who hadn’t played together before but those groups gelled really quickly and performed as a team.

“When they did that, that’s when I thought it could be a good year. We had a good start to the season and winning games away from home was probably the start of it and it helped to take some pressure off everybody toward the end of the year.”