Fresh from four days off over the Easter long weekend the team are pumped and raring to get back out onto the field. This Sunday we return to North Sydney Oval for our first home game day of the 2024 season. It's the first clash of the Jason Taylor Cup where we take on the Western Suburbs Magpies and winner is awarded over two games on aggregate points. Bears currently hold the trophy and are keen to keep it that way. Check out the players named to pull on a red & black jersey this Sunday and it's a solid looking team. We see the return of Regan Hughes who has been recovering from injury and is biting at the bit to get back in and play. Big Nelson Asofa-Solomona returns, he has shaken off the nerves from his first game as a Bear and is ready to make an impact on the field. If you want to see some top shelf footy, this is the game to be at!

“Working in a part-time environment can be very challenging for all players and medical/performance staff managing injuries. This year we are really focusing on working with the players, so they understand how to best manage their injury in their daily lives including in their full-time jobs, alongside setting them up with specific gym and field-based rehab plans." stated the teams Head Physiotherapist George Davis from Axis Athletic Performance Lab.

In hot and windy conditions, we got our Knock-On Effect NSW Cup 2024 season underway last Sunday as we took on St George Illawarra Dragons in Wollongong. Only five minutes in, Ben Talty got the Bears on the board with a straight and strong push for the line. The Dragons quickly answered jumping on a Bears mistake to even the scores at 4 a piece, and there the score remained for the rest of the half. Both sides seemed to be finding their combinations in the first half, and although the boys in the red & black made a number of errors, mostly in over enthusiasm, their fierce defence kept them in the game. "They had 10 sets attacking our tryline and didn't score, so we knew if we could control the ball, we would be in with a chance despite using a lot of petrol in the 1st half." stated Head Coach Pat Weisner. On the field, our captain, Kurt De Luis, could be clearly heard throughout the venue applauding the team every time they held out a set of six. His leadership and positive energy infectious.

In the final days of summer on a beautiful warm night at The Greens North Sydney, we brought together our corporate partners, sponsors, members, staff and senior playing group to celebrate the launch of the North Sydney Bears 2024 Knock-On Effect NSW Cup season. Guests sipped on chilled Bear Park Brews and Grizzly Gin-gers, featuring our very own Bear Park Gin, consumed delicious morsels of bao buns, sliders, arancini balls and gourmet sausage rolls and reveled in the feeling that only the anticipation of a new season brings. With one week until comp kick off to go, pre-season is almost done, trial games successfully completed and now the big job of tackling the next 26 rounds begins.

All teams are back at the summer home of the Bears, Hills Grammar School, this Saturday. Our male teams take on the Sydney Roosters and our female teams go up against the Bulldogs. Big games for the half way mark of the junior representative season. Our Knock-On Effect NSW Cup team has no games now until round1, Bears v Dragons in Wollongong on Sunday 10th March. All focus for our senior team is now on refining the playing team and preparing mentally for a big season ahead. Get on down to Hills Grammar this Saturday to cheer on your junior Bears!

Weisner continues to adjust and bolster the team and recently signed three new players. Trey Peni swaps his stripes to come across to the Bears from the Wests Tigers. Peni has come through the Wests Tigers pathway program having played Harold Matts, SG Ball and Jersey Flegg in the orange and black. He was also called up to play in the Tigers 2023 NRL preseason challenge, scoring the first try for the team.

This month our KOE NSW Cup Head Coach, Pat Weisner, joined the Melbourne Storm NRL camp in Geelong alongside two of our Cup players, Jake Toby and Tui Katoa, and local junior and Bears Harold Matthews Cup player, Ben Stringer. Weisner spent the week engulfed in all things footy, canvassing for information, techniques and tactics that can be implemented back at the Bears. When he returned to Sydney, we caught up with our main man to find out some of his learnings and to see how the red & black are tracking five weeks out from comp kick off.