ST MARY’S premiership hero Nick Connors has crossed the Bass Strait to get his footy fix in 2020.
Connors, who kicked the match-winning goal with just seconds remaining in last year’s GFL Grand Final, will spend a shortened season with Tasmanian State League club Lauderdale, linking up with former Saint Sam Siggins.
“I got a message from the football manager at Lauderdale; I think he contacted a few of the boys from St Mary’s,” Connors told krockfootball.com.au.
“He knew of St Mary’s through ‘Siggo’, and I wasn’t doing much with all the COVID stuff, so I thought, “why not. I’ll go and have a crack”.”
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After spending two weeks in mandatory quarantine in a Hobart hotel, Connors took to the field in an intra-club practice match on Saturday and started worked as a labourer on Monday ahead of the season starting this Saturday.
The former Geelong Falcons said it was good to be back in a football environment.
“You don’t realise how much you miss it until it’s gone; until you’re not going down to the club every second night,” Connors said.
“And those Saturdays doing nothing, you do miss catching up with the boys and the social scene afterwards.
“It will be good to have that back for 12-14 weeks.”
Connors admits it didn’t take long for his new teammates to make the connection between St Mary’s premiership win and his moment of glory.
“They caught wind of it pretty quickly,” he said.
“I had a couple of beers with them on Saturday night, so I let them know if they didn’t already.
“Someone posted it on the (club) Facebook page, so they must have already looked at it.”
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Connors is among several players taking the opportunity to play interstate less impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
As we reported last week, Bannockburn star Jack Brauman is playing with Surfers Paradise in the QAFL.
Also lodging clearances to clubs in the Sunshine State, Grovedale’s Mathieson medallist Nathan Deans, Geelong West trio, Scott Frangos Jye Bohm and Jayden Symes, who will all play at Port Douglas.
Portarlington star Daniel Measures, who played in premierships with Queenscliff and St Joseph’s, looks set to join Pioneer in the Central Australian competition in the Northern Territory.
Anglesea spearhead Jordan Erskine, and Geelong Amateur’s Riley Mattner have both looked at playing in South Australia.
Erskine could join former Grovedale team Daniel Stanley at Gawler Central, while Mattner lodged a clearance to Langhorne Creek.
A number of local stars were keen to play in the VAFA if their season had gone ahead.
Darcy Bennett (Lara), Brock Williamson (Portarlington), Sam Conway (St Mary’s), Paul Dreher (Queenscliff) were headed to Old Geelong, while Geelong Amateur veteran Jarrod Young was off to Old Trinity.
Jeremy Taylor, who rejoined junior club Newtown & Chilwell at the end of 2019, was set to return to reigning Premier Section premiers Uni Blues.
Twitter: @tom_king79
