By JARROD POTTER
THE last 12 months have proven the best yet for Dandenong-based rugby-league team South Eastern Titans.
The club recently moved to Greaves Reserve from their initial home base at Doveton’s Betula Reserve and it is starting to pay off.
The Titans were able to expand to senior ranks with the relocation – adding a reserve grade senior men’s team in 2014 to great success – and that side has earned a spot in the Victorian Rugby League’s first-grade competition.
South Eastern Titans president Andy Tapatuetoa said the expansion into the top grade is a fitting continuation of the great benefit of moving to Greater Dandenong.
“We did have two clubs – juniors and another club just had seniors and things didn’t really go the way we wanted it to be… we wanted our boys to be together as they had started to go elsewhere,” Tapatuetoa said.
“At Greaves Reserve – we now have our own venue and the space – we’re not limited for space and we’ve now got lighting for training… some teams were training in the dark at Betula Reserve.
“Playing in the First grade – this will be our first year – it’s great that there is now a top grade and a pathway for the culture in the club.”
The Titans now boast 15 Victorian Rugby League (VRL) teams from over-35 masters, senior men’s first grade, women’s all the way down to the juniors with membership increasing to 264 players across all age groups.
The club also expects to boost numbers as the Titans add a women’s full-contact tackle team for the first time in 2015 after the success of the VRL’s Women’s Tackle Gala Days last year.
In another change to Victorian rugby league, all teams from a club will travel to a venue with juniors and seniors alike and will play consecutively on the same day, a shift that Tapatuetoa endorses wholeheartedly.
“It’s great … the great thing about the competition is that we travel as a club, so it keeps all the families together,” Tapatuetoa said.
“If you have three-or-four kids having them at different venues makes it difficult, but having that new structure of how the games are played is a great change.”
The South Eastern Titans will hold their Registration Day this Saturday, 24 January between 10am-5pm at Amart Sports Dandenong, 55-67 Frankston-Dandenong Road, Dandenong with a sausage sizzle and 20 per cent off sports gear for newly registered members.
For more information on the Titans, contact secretary Maria Wilson on 0415 521 978 or maria@setitans.com.
