Whittle proud to lead debuting Crushers into battle

NO one is more surprised than John Whittle himself to see him leading Bendigo Crushers into NRL Victoria Storm Metro Premiership battle for the first time this weekend.

As recently as two years ago, Whittle had long given up his dream of playing the game he grew up loving and at one stage landed him a place in the Brisbane Broncos and Gold Coast Titans systems.

That was until the establishment in the latter months of 2024 of Bendigo’s first rugby league club since the demise of the Bendigo Tigers in the early 2010s, with him as one of the co-founders.

Twenty-one months on, the Crushers will take to the field for the first time in the league’s third division against Hume Eagles in Craigieburn tomorrow, Saturday 9 May.

The clash will be a proud moment for all involved with the Crushers, in particular Whittle, the fledgling club’s inaugural captain-coach.

Now 36, he started playing rugby league in Cairns when he was four, alongside his brothers and with his dad as coach.

A promising junior career, which blossomed following a move in his teens to Ipswich, landed him a scholarship with the NRL’s Broncos.

When that fell through, he made his way to the Titans for nearly two years before injuries took hold.

He was just 23 when he decided to give the game away.

Soon after, he made the move to Bendigo, which he has called home for the past 12 months.

Still bitten by the rugby bug, Whittle attempted a comeback when he was 26 with Bendigo’s rugby union team, the Fighting Miners, but that was quickly and cruelly cut short by an ACL injury.

A decade on, and surprised to be back playing, he is ready to lead the Crushers into an exciting new era.

“I never thought I’d be playing rugby league again and I certainly didn’t see it happening like this,” Whittle said.

“I’ve been a part of rugby league since I was four years old. My dad coach me and I played with my older brothers.

“There was 20-plus years of being around rugby league.

“It’s fair to say the move to Bendigo was a bit of a shock to the culture.

“But I couldn’t be more excited to be back around rugby and especially for this weekend.”

A first on many fronts for the Crushers, as well as Whittle, he has never before been involved with a club starting from scratch.

“I’ve always been a part of established clubs, with a good rapport and heaps of sponsors already on board,” he said.

“Getting people and organisations to come on board with us has been really difficult, especially being a rugby league club in a predominantly AFL state.

“It does test us a bit; we’ve put in hundreds of hours of our own time, which is what we’ve wanted to do.

“It’s all been for the love of the game and getting the club going, but there’s still a long way to go.

“I’ve captained a lot of teams over my time, but to build something with the boys from the ground up is something I will always remember.”

While they plan to show plenty of resilience on the field in their first season, the Crushers have learned to have it in spades off the field during their brief history.

Their first season in the competition followed an aborted attempt last year.

“It’s taken a while to get us there, but now the cogs are turning, it’s all good,” Whittle said.

“It’s like we’ve had a year-and-a-half of pre-season training.

“We missed out on entering the competition last year, so being able to get the numbers up with blokes keen to play, it’s worked out for us.

“We’re super keen.”

The Crushers rounded out their preparation with a three-way challenge on 18 April against North West Wolves and Hume Eagles.

Whittle said there were promising signs shown by the Crushers in a half each against both sides.

“We went down, but it was a good learning curve – we know where we are sitting now and what we need to work on,” he said.

“We played game one and two, while the other two teams played game three.

“It was a tough situation, having to front up to a fresh Wolves after we’d played a half against Hume, but it was just good to get a game under our belts.”

Whittle pinpointed Chris Payne and speedsters Matt Mitchell and James Orme as players to look out for in the Crushers’ first season.

The experienced Payne is making a return to his true love of rugby league, after playing several seasons of rugby union with the Fighting Miners and will provide valuable leadership to a group looking to quickly make their presence felt.

Whittle said the Miners would enter the season with tempered expectations.

“We have to take it one week at a time,” he said.

“The trial game opened our eyes as to what sort of standard we are going up against.

“It is Div 3, but it’s still going to be a tough comp, but I’m more than confident in our boys and what they can do.

“There is a lot of heart in this team.”