Cooks Hill United looked every bit a club aiming for NPL promotion when they demolished Belmont-Swansea 4-0 in the Northern League One grand final at Magic Park on Sunday.
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Daniel Johnson, Daniel Yaxley, Lee Ashton and Cal Lewis, four players with recent NPL experience, scored Cooks Hill’s goals to help clinch the club’s maiden first-division minor-major premiership double.
Coach Graham Law said the result reflected the club’s ambition to join the 11-team Northern NSW NPL when the top league’s three-year licence period expires at the end of 2019 – if not sooner.
“We know where we’re at. There’s no promotion for a few years. Probably not a bad thing for this club,” Law said.
“They’re a baby club. They’re massive in terms of size, but we’ve got a lot of stuff to get right off the park. We have a very good committee that will get there.”
The former Adamstown Rosebud NPL coach said results like Sunday’s were important to keep volunteers and players motivated and to position the club as well as possible.
“A lot of people have been speaking today, ‘Oh, it’s disappointing you’ve not went up.’ It is what it is. We knew at the start of the season we weren’t going up.
“I keep saying to the boys it’s a three-year window, but you never know what could change.
“Next year they might go, ‘Right, you’re ready.’ And it might suit them to have a level [even-numbered] comp. It might not.
“All we can do is position ourselves to structurally on and off the park be the team that goes up.
“It’s a big club, and it’s only going to get bigger. There’s clubs going this way [down], really big, proud clubs. I’m not saying any names, but they’re going that way, and this club’s going the other way.
“Ambition, numbers, the right people off the park. The days of selling sausage rolls and lollies are gone. To be successful, you need business people, and we’ve got that.”
Cooks Hill were in control from the outset against Belswans and took the lead in the ninth minute when Johnson curled a corner over keeper Ben Parmeter and inside the far post.
Yaxley doubled the lead eight minutes later when Belswans were slow to react to a loose ball in the box and the former Rosebud winger stabbed it home.
The first two goals were soft, but the third was a superb team effort in the shadow of half-time.
The impressive Ashton started it with some neat footwork near the right sideline and finished it off by burying Yaxley’s cut-back from the byline.
Lewis joined the party just after half-time when Nick Russell outpaced the defence and slid a ball across the six-yard box for the former Magic and Jaffas man to ram home.
“I feel fortunate to have a squad like this, but I take it as a compliment they want to come and play for me,” Law said. “These guys put on a show today, and I imagine I’ll be missing a few of them next year.”
