After three years of stagnation, the Warriors will once again hit the court representing Wangaratta in the Country Basketball League, the premier senior representative basketball competition in the region.

The CBL program has not run in Wangaratta since the redevelopment works at the stadium at WSAC were complete, with the Warriors spending several seasons either on the sidelines of playing for neighbouring towns.

Now, they’re back, and the call has gone out for all coaching roles within the Warriors’ senior men’s and women’s representative programs.

Wangaratta Basketball Inc president Adam Maher said he was thrilled the association was able to relaunch the CBL program.

“It’s fantastic from a number of angles,” he said.

“We’ve got a really clear pathway for our juniors aging out of junior basketball, to keep them involved in Wangaratta basketball and give us a good side leading into the CBL.

“We’ll be looking to bring back a couple who haven’t played because we haven’t had a CBL side for a couple of years.

“As far as giving Wangaratta patrons opportunities to play for Wangaratta again rather than having to go elsewhere, it’s going to be really fantastic for the community, there’s a fair bit of excitement around it.”

Wangaratta’s men’s CBL side last took to the court in November 2023, while there hasn’t been a women’s side since the 2022/23 season.

After a power of work and millions of dollars went into the redevelopment of the stadium at WSAC, the dust needed to settle and stakeholders had to figure out how best to bring back the CBL program.

Maher confirmed everyone was on the same page going forward.

“With the opening of the redevelopment, there was some stuff WSAC and RCOW needed to work through from a process point of view and how that looked,” he said.

“Saturday night is not a normal opening time for them, so we had to work through some obstacles and challenges to make sure they were all ticked off and happy.

“Basketball Victoria got fairly involved in helping us to cement with WSAC and RCOW what we were doing and what we’d need, making sure we’re ticking their boxes as well.

“On the whole, we’re working really well now with WSAC as everything’s starting to settle down, the management team at WSAC are starting to understand what the landscape looks like a lot better now they’ve been in it for a little while and nutted out how it works.

“We knew there was going to be a little bit of pain for a while as they worked out how it was all going to work, but I think we’re at the end of that now.”

Maher confirmed they were on the lookout for coaches for both men’s and women’s teams, and was keeping an eye out for players, with several previous Warriors signalling their intention to return.

Expressions of interest for coaching roles close on 12 July, with interviews to commence from 13 July.

For more information, visit the Wangaratta Basketball Inc Facebook page.

CBL men's and women's coaching applications can be submitted via https://bit.ly/4w3zYOG, and resumes can be emailed to Coaching.Jobs@wbi.org.au.