GNFL 2024 season preview: Recruits set to bolster Towns’ home grown talent

Towns Football Club is adopting a co-coach strategy in 2024 in a move it hopes will lead to a path back up the GNFL ladder.

Beau Walker has joined incumbent coach Dale Baynes after coming from Northampton, with the former signing on as a player-coach.

Baynes said the move had been successful throughout preseason.

“It’s been working well over the summer,” he said.

“He’s done the majority of the preseason and the planning side of things, and I’m helping out with my experience with the group and the club.”

The Bulldogs historically have been the most successful club in the competition, with 13 premierships to their name.

However, the club last saw premiership glory in 2016 and has featured towards the bottom half of the ladder for the past few seasons.

With the successful colts from 2021 and 2022 graduating to league football, along with the recruiting of Walker and former Hawk Drew Macgregor, Baynes was optimistic the club could rise up the ranks in 2024.

“The kids coming through from those two colts premierships in a row have now hit league ranks,” he said.

“We just needed some bigger bodies and some adults to put around them.

“Hopefully we develop from the competitiveness we showed towards the end of last year and turn that into a few more wins.”

During preseason, Baynes identified some players who he had been impressed with so far.

“Callum Marquis showed in that all-star game what he’s capable of, winning best on ground,” he said.

“Drew Macgregor has been a standout with his fitness and leadership.

“I think our captain Drew Forrester, his work rate and his leadership as gone to another level, which is really pleasing.”

Recruitment appears to have been a theme across the club, with former Hawk Jess Giudice-Nairn joining the women’s program as player-coach alongside reigning best and fairest winner Gemma Dix.

Baynes said the whole club was looking to push to return to their roots.

“We just want to be competitive this year and see what we’re capable of,” he said.

“We’re aiming to build over the next two or three years, and then try and be the force that we were back in the late 90s/early 2000s.”

GLENN BARNDON’S PREDICTION: FIFTH

Towns new player-coach Beau Walker has generated a solid preseason, producing good numbers and renewed enthusiasm following a solid season of improvement along with some useful recruits. They may still be several key players short and despite the Bulldogs’ recent colts success it does take time for those players to develop consistency at senior level.