It is the dawning of a new era at Cronulla Sutherland.
The club is buzzing for their first home game of the new winter state league season against Marrickville at Tom Evans Field, Bonnet Bay on Saturday.
And it is a fresh start for Cronulla, with local junior and former pro player Jarad Mangioni taking over as player-coach and bringing with him a host of impressive acquisitions.
The most notable is another local junior David Kandalis, with the current Australian representative also joining as the club’s high performance coach.
Kandalis, from Lilli Pilli, reached Triple-A level with the Colorado Rockies after signing his pro contract as a 17-year-old.
Kandalis said he was thrilled to be back involved with the club while recovering from a knee injury he suffered playing in Japan.
“It’s fantastic. It’s giving back to the sport and the association that has given us so much in starting our careers,” he said.
“It’s all about trying to help out the kids as much as we can and utilising our time and what we know.”
Cronulla Sutherland have made a strong start to the season, winning against Quakers Hill 18-6 on opening day followed by a 1-0 loss to last season’s grand final winners Petersham-Leichhardt.
Mangioni, a former pro player with the Toronto Blue Jays, said he was delighted with how the new era at the club was shaping up.
“Baseball is such a massive sport in our area, there’s more than 1000 juniors playing from t-ball up,” he said.
“We’ve got a new high performance program that we started [two weeks ago] which is giving the best youngsters a chance to train with former pros.
“Last year we had a team go over to the U.S. for the Little League World Series and they were the first Cronulla team to do it.
“Because a lot of us have been overseas or off starting a family or whatever, now it’s an opportunity for us to give something back.”
First grade starts at 2pm.