Spears kick off Saturday at Notre Dame
It is go time this weekend for the Niagara Spears travel football teams.
The varsity (under-18) and junior varsity (under-16) Spears will open their seasons this Saturday at home against the London Junior Mustangs at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. at Notre Dame and the bantams will host the Oakville Titans at 1 p.m. at Notre Dame.
Because of renovations to Kiwanis Park, the teams’ first two home games will be played at Notre Dame in Welland. The varsity and junior varsity teams have also been practising there.
“We have been really fortunate with the Catholic school board and Notre Dame opening up their arms to us. It was very nice of them from the principal all the way to the top of the board,” varsity head coach Brian Duguay said. “It was ‘Just tell us what we can do for you’ and Mr. Bisci being the head coach he opened up the doors. And he has some toys that we like.”
Below are brief looks at the three squads:
VARSITY
“It is looking good. We are doing really well and we have a lot of nice talent out. The tale will be told after the first game. Hopefully we don’t jinx ourselves like we did last year,” Duguay said.
Last season, the under-18 squad lost all of its starting offensive linemen to injury in the first game of the season.
“It was jinxed and it was bad luck. We had broken ankles, injured knees and guys had problems from previous injuries who came in and had to get surgery.”
The goals for the season is to be a .500 squad and Duguay believes the squad’s personnel can make that happen. But it won’t be easy.
“Our division is really tough. We start off with London then we go to Essex and then we play Cornwall which won the other division and then Hamilton comes to us. After the first four games, it would be good to be 2-2.”
He feels there is a different energy around the team in 2024.
“The overall confidence and the commitment in the guys is different. It was hard this year and it was the first time in a long time where we had to make cuts. Usually the guys would not show up. They would look at the depth chart and think, ‘So and so is in front of me and I don’t need to be there. I am not going to get playing time.’ But this year they forced us and it was nice. We all appreciated that.”
There is nothing like internal competition to make a team stronger.
“Even our crossover practice with Hamilton you could see the commitment and the drive.”
Training camp featured 87 players and the team’s roster will dictate the style of play this season.
“We are going to be grinders and we are going back to the old way of Niagara football. We are going to grind it and we are going to be tough,” Duguay said. “We have a lot of good linebackers who are young and tough. Our defensive line and offensive line is big and tough. Our running backs and H backs are all tough and our finesse guys are tough. That’s the first thing we noticed when we went indoors and started practising was how much they wanted to block for each other.”
JUNIOR VARSITY
“We look OK. We have been working hard and we have started to put it together. It is still early in the season though but we have had a few good surprises,” JV head coach Brad Martin said. “We have some good quality returning players and some good pieces coming back that have that experience of a year of provincial football. It showed in our scrimmage against Hamilton, It is a big step up.”
The JV Spears captured the Tier 2 championship last season and that experience will help in 2024.
“We were pretty much in every game we played last year other than London who we didn’t do so well against. It showed us what we needed to get to be in that top five or six teams in the province,” he said.
The Spears are competing against larger population centres which also are more focused on one program and one pathway.
“London is a powerhouse in the province and it starts with their feeder system. The formula is right there,” Martin said.
The team had 85 players in training camp.
“We have a lot of good players this year and it allows us to do a lot of different things with our personnel packages. We won’t really know our identity for a couple of games because we start off with London, Essex and Kingston who we beat in the finals last year and Hamilton.”
The goal for the season is to qualify for the upper tier of the playoffs. The top four teams in each of the two conferences quality for the Tier 1 playoffs,
“We are confident, we are building a good program here, we have an amazing coaching staff and the kids are working their tails off,” Martin said.
BANTAM
“I am quite happy with the progress we are making here. We had a few kids join late in the process and were are getting them up to speed with our program,” bantam head coach Troy Herbert said.
“I think we are a lot quicker, we have a good mix of kids who have played before and we had some good kids move in from out of the area who have played football in other centres and that gives us a little more experience.
We also have a little bit of a different flavour with the coaching staff this year. We are all going in the same direction and we did last year too. We on board with what we are trying to do and the kids are on board with it too.
People are going to be very surprised when they play the Spears this year.”
Herbert’s expectations aren’t necessarily about wins and losses.
“The scoreboard may say one thing but the team that came in and played us is going to know that they played a football game. I am hoping the scoreboard and our effort match but at the end of the day if the kids put in the effort that I am seeing out here, the teams will know that they had a football game and they had to work hard to win it.”
The bantams started the year with 23 players in camp in January and the team’s roster has now grown to around 40.
“That is massive. It gives me a chance to rest players as opposed to using players on both sides of the football and on special teams. I have the opportunity to have offensive and defensive players which is a big help and a big change from last year,” Herbert said.
