Campbell Lyons set to make first grade debut with Southcity

Now he's looking to make the most of his chance in the top grade.

The 17-year-old will make his first grade debut against Kangaroos on Saturday.

The Narrandera product is excited for the opportunity.

"I'm excited," Lyons said.

"I was pretty happy as I've been training hard to eventually play first grade and now it's finally come around."

READ MORE

COVID first led Lyons to Wagga when Group 20 didn't play at all in 2020.

Instead he played under 15s with Magpies and has been moving through the grades with Southcity ever since.

He spent part of the off-season with the Illawarra Steelers SG Ball side.

Lyons hopes that experience will help him at Equex Centre.

"It was good, you get to see what it is like and see some of the first grade guys and see what it is all about," Lyons said.

"The plan was to come back and play for Southcity as I didn't really have a stable home and I'm still in school so I thought I'd come back to do school and it would be a bit easier."

Captain-coach Kyle McCarthy is confident he will step up to the mark.

"It's well deserved," McCarthy said.

"He played fullback for us at West Wyalong and played really well in a losing team.

"I don't think he will look out of place.

"He's obviously been training at a higher standard in the pre-season with a SG Ball squad."

Lyons will slot into the centres to replace James Morgan, who is representing Country, as the Bulls finally get their campaign underway.

After the withdrawal of Brothers saw first grade have a bye in round one, the club had the bye in round three before last week's general bye.

Lyons is looking forward to the challenge of taking on Kangaroos.

"'Roos are a hard club and they've got some good signings this year but it will be a good challenge in the first game of the year for first grade," he said.

"We will see how we go."

Southcity are not only without Morgan, who has linked to the club from Brothers, but Joel Tracey has re-aggravated a foot issue.

After picking up the issue in the pre-season the problem flared up again this week.

However McCarthy is just looking forward to finally getting on the field.

"It has been painful watching especially after the long rep series we had but it will be good to go out there finally," McCarthy said.

However with a number of returning players as well as some new faces, McCarthy doesn't think the break has been all bad.

Instead it's given them more time to develop some combinations.

"We've trained pretty well, we've had a lot of time but that's probably been good for us," he said. "We needed that extra time to build combinations as there are a lot of new faces in the team. That extra three weeks wait probably helps us.

"It was a spanner in the works losing Jimmy (Morgan) but we've been training really well.

"It's been good and we've been doing an extra session on Saturdays trying to get everything down pat."

McCarthy has named himself at hooker.

It's something he thinks suits the side best.

"We have got too many hookers in the club," McCarthy said.

"Dyl Warner is there but I think he needs a couple of years to put a few extra kilos on, he's probably not quite the size he needs to be to be a middle in first grade at the moment so while he develops I'll be a nine."

Southcity are looking to bounce back from a tough season.

They won just one game in 2022 and face a tough test in Kangaroos to start their campaign.

McCarthy is expecting a tough test.

"They've obviously recruited a lot of blokes and have started pretty well," he said.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: