Horbury rejoins Bloods for 2026 BFNL season

NATHAN Horbury will enjoy the best of both worlds in 2026, combining his loves of life in Queensland and South Bendigo.

Horbury, now based at Noosa with wife Hollie and their young family, will return to the club he coached between 2019 and 2023 as a player.

Under the arrangement, he will play at least eight games with the Bloods.

Renowned for his precise disposal, composure and leadership, his return adds experience and class to a Bloods team that finished with an 11-5 minor season record and made it through to the second week of finals, after only four wins in 2024.

Horbury, who has spent the past two seasons playing for QAFL club Noosa under former Brisbane Lions and Essendon ruckman Matthew Leunberger, is pumped to be back in red and white.

 

“It will be great coming back to play with some of my best mates and a lot of the boys I coached over a long period of time,” he said.

“I’m not moving back as we don’t want to leave the lifestyle we have up here and our young fellow is starting school, so I’m committing to eight to 10 games, which will be nice, and then hopefully we go deep into finals.

“Watching from afar this year, it was so good to see what South achieved.

“I absolutely love the footy club – I’ll follow them for the rest of my life.

“They are such quality people at the footy club. Some of the boys I coached – I take no credit for their development last year – but they are playing some extremely good football.

“It was good to see them get some success and to reap the rewards, as it’s been a pretty lean few years at South.

“Injuries at the end of the year didn’t help, losing key players, they could well have gone another step.

“Hopefully being together for another 12 months and knowing how each other plays is what they need.”

A drawcard for Horbury is the chance to play under the Bloods’ second-year coaching team of Troy Coates (non-playing) and Jack Fallon (playing).

“I’ve always respected Coatesy and Fal very highly, playing against them back at South, when Troy was at Strath and Jack at Eaglehawk,” he said.

“It’s a great opportunity.

“They did a remarkable job last season getting the boys to where they did.”

Horbury revealed the decision to commit to the Bloods was virtually 12 months in the making.

“To be honest, I sat down with the club last year and we had a look at the side they would be starting to build,” he said.

“I was pretty interested last year, but this time I think it’s definitely the right timing for us.

“I was pretty committed to Noosa (last year), but South reached out again this year.

“It stemmed from there.

“The year South had last year and where the club is heading, I didn’t want to miss out on something hopefully pretty special.

“Hopefully everything falls into place. It’s not going to be easy – there are some pretty good sides around with Eaglehawk and Sandhurst, and Strathfieldsaye are recruiting well, so it’s going to be tough.

“But I don’t want to miss out.”

His alliance with South Bendigo will be Horbury’s lone involvement in football next season, after calling time on his career at Noosa.

He originally joined South Bendigo as coach in 2019 following a stellar Ballarat league career with Redan and stints with Geelong and North Ballarat’s VFL teams.

He won the Henderson Medal as the Ballarat league’s best and fairest with Redan in 2017.

One former teammate Horbury won’t get to play alongside is Steven Stroobants, whose signing by North Central league club Calder Lions was announced last week.

Co-coach of the Bloods in 2024, Stroobants was one of only two players to reach 50 goals in the BFNL last season, doing so in 13 games.

Bloods teammate Brock Harvey topped the league with 53 goals.

South Bendigo will begin pre-season training on 1 December.