Lambton Jaffas have returned from the COVID-19 break with an even better attack for the delayed start to the Northern NSW NPL season after the comeback of striker Pat Brown.
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The Jaffas, who start their season away to Lake Macquarie on July 12, lost Brown to work commitments in Sydney last year after he made just three appearances.
He was set to again be missing this season but a change in work circumstances since March's postponement of the league has made him available for the revamped 13-round competition.
The return is a boost for Lambton, especially given the loss of 2019 competition top scorer Braedyn Crowley to Maitland. The club, however, had already recruited star power in Scott Pettit (Olympic), Matt Thompson (Maitland), Mitch Oxborrow and Kale Bradbery (Broadmeadow) in pre-season to make them leading contenders this year.
"He gives us another option up there and it's just nice, after losing Braedyn, that we have another that can go up top," Jaffas coach James Pascoe said of Brown's return.
"He's scored some important goals for us. He scored in our grand final win [in 2017] and he just offers you something different.
"He's a very old-fashioned No.9 with his back to goal, holding the ball up and bringing other people into play.
"His consistency of finishing still needs work but hopefully once he gets his rhythm back again he'll just give us another option.
"And he's handy off the bench, especially if you need someone to come on in the last 10 minutes and hold the ball up for you."
Pascoe said he was leaning towards Pettit taking over from Crowley at the point of the attack this year. Pettit has been used predominantly as a wide player at Broadmeadow and Olympic.
"It will be new for him so it will probably be a bit of an adjustment phase, but he's someone who likes to attack space in behind," he said.
Lambton had lost depth with the withdrawal of another recruit, Jayden Barber, who succumbed to a chronic knee injury. However, the club has picked up former Jets youth midfielder Kaleb Cox from Weston.
Pascoe said Cox initiated the switch well before a gentlemen's agreement between clubs about not signing players from each other's top-grade roster for the shortened and financially challenging new-look season.
