Wodonga Saints president Adrian Barry is grappling with the coffee machine just across from the canteen hatch in the communal area of the new club rooms at Les Cheesley Oval.
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At this early stage, all the indications are that the coffee machine is winning.
Teething problems are to be expected, given this is the club's first game at their new home after two decades of groundsharing with the Wodonga Bulldogs next door at John Flower Oval following their relocation from Bethanga in 2000.
The Saints may only have moved a few hundred metres but it feels a whole lot more than that.
"In the Bethanga days, the club was a very proud club out there but unfortunately the community got smaller and smaller and sponsorship and players were hard to come by," Barry recalled.
"We put a vote to the community about whether they maintain Bethanga or make the move into Wodonga and it was voted they make the move, with a verbal commitment that some facilities would be put in place for us to compete out of.
"Twenty-odd years later, that hadn't come to fruition so it's taken a lot of people's hard work across our club to keep working on the council and gaining the support of leagues to develop a facility where we can play.
"It's a big thing for our club to have the feeling of a home rather than renting facilities and being dictated to by other clubs.
"I believe having a home, having somewhere that people can call their own, will help develop our juniors because we've struggled with junior football in recent times. Having that family feeling we try to provide for people will make a big difference to our club long-term."
Serafino De Mizio, one of the club's life members, steps out of the canteen.
"Today is a very important day for us," De Mizio said.
"Over there, we were always associated with the Bulldogs and it wasn't our club. We couldn't have our memorabilia up on the walls. We went in, played our game and walked out.
"But finally, this is ours. We've got our own football oval, our own club rooms and it's a great thing to see.
"It's a great experience for me, since I've been here for nearly 14 years, to see the club come so far."
Between two of the Bethanga Saints honour boards sits a whiteboard full of motivational messages.
It's hard to believe Troy Vennix doesn't have an official role at the club this season given how busy he's been filling it over the last few minutes.
"This is about round one on a ground that we've never had before, letting the reserves players know that passion drives everything," Vennix said.
"Gavin (Cadman), as the coach, will go through a whole heap of stuff and then I'll come in as a life member, past player and somebody who's passionate about the club and let them know we've worked really hard for many years to get our own home ground and that it's an honour for these guys to be able to come out here and actually play. It's a really big deal.
"The whole idea of team sport is that it's not just an individual thing and that's what I like about footy. There's so many people involved and it's the people off the field who are doing all the work to make it happen.
"There is no team on the field without the volunteers and the blokes doing the hard yards.
"We've got so many life members here today it's unreal. I know five, in particular, are very active in the running of this club. Normally your life members are older and they've taken a step back from it all and are resting but our idea of resting is getting in behind the scenes and driving these younger blokes to come through.
"I don't have an official role this year, I'm just on the general committee, and my role here is to mentor as many people as I can possibly can while I'm young enough to do it."
Outside, there's a growing line of cars snaking through the gap in the temporary fencing along Gordon Street.
"Where are the netball courts?" one lost-looking driver asks as he steps out of his car.
It's a good question and the answer is: a two-minute walk away on the other side of John Flower Oval. The footballers may be enjoying new surrounds but the Saints netballers are still playing under the snarling Bulldog logo.
"Unfortunately, our club has had a lot of issues in previous years with derogatory remarks about our junior footballers and it feels like we just can't break that tarnish," netball co-ordinator Kaly Smith said.
"We've kicked out that bad element and we are a family club, a nurturing club, an amazing club.
"The netball is very different to the football though. It's hard because we're over here and we don't have netball courts where they train.
"We are very segregated and it does make it hard, as a club, to be one, but that's not really recognised by government bodies."
However, rows of camping chairs set up on the concrete banking opposite and a cacophony of encouragement all around us in the sheds is proof the Saints netball section is alive and well.
Smith is like a cat on a hot tin roof, living and breathing every moment of her under-17 side's match against Beechworth.
"It's hard watching," she admitted. "I tend to nearly go on court, so people have to rein me back, especially in close games.
"I'm down, I'm excited, I jump and that's what people love to see from me as a coach. The girls can feel it, the spectators can feel it and they know the coach has her heart in that game.
"It's not just a job for me, it's a love of seeing improvement and it's a love of netball.
"Coaching the girls and being a guide, a mentor for them, building that team spirit and connection, it really pushes them on court to get the final result.
"As a coach you should be able to feel what your players are feeling, on and off the court, so we need to ensure we're nurturing that in the way we speak and lifting them up.
"My girls, in the second quarter, were flat so I was hanging for that time so I could rev them up. They went out and they nailed the quarter, they just needed that push to say 'come on, let's do this, we've got this, as a team.'
"Sometimes I'm hard on them, sometimes I'm soft, but if I said 'no' to coaching, I'd have a fear of missing out."
Next to us is Rebecca Barry, Adrian's sister, coach of the C-grade.
"This is my first season as a coach and it's very exciting," Barry said. "We've got quite a few new faces and we're having a great time."
One of those new faces is 23-year-old Mikayla Gregory, a physiotherapist who's recently moved from Wagga and has never played club netball before.
"I wanted a social activity, a way to keep fit and to make some new friends," Gregory said. "I was very scared walking in for the first time but immediately all those fears were pushed aside because they were so kind and inclusive. They want to get to know you and they want to include you.
"I went to uni here but a lot of my friends have moved away since then so it's nice to have a club and to have those kind of social activities built into my weekly calendar.
"I've been playing centre and wing-attack and I just love it. It's a lot of fun, the team hypes you up the whole time, it's a friendly club, they want you to play your best and to feel good about yourself after you play. It's very encouraging and motivating.
"You sometimes worry that clubs will already have bonds formed and you'll be an outsider but it's not the case at the Saints.
"They want you to be part of the club, they want you to feel included and they'll do what they can to make sure you are happy."
Rachel Hansford is going through her final preparations before coaching the B-grade and A-grade.
"I wasn't planning on playing because I fractured my ankle last year but I ended up getting a clearance so I'm playing and coaching," Hansford explained.
"I'm enjoying it but I think I worry more now about what's going to happen. You're trying to sort out every single player that might have something going on, if they can't play or they can't train, and trying to be adaptable when things change. We've got extra players on the bench today because two A-graders had COVID the other week and are still recovering.
"One of our youngsters is doing a lot of study for school and they have exams at the moment so they might not be able to attend training, so you take all of that into consideration."
It's time to retrace my steps back to 'the Cheese' where senior coach Zack Pleming can hardly believe his side is about to run out for its first genuine home game.
"It certainly feels different," Pleming said.
"It's been in the works for a few years now and it's taken a lot of hard work behind the scenes to get here.
"We're really excited to create our own identity on our own ground and we're looking forward to the next chapter.
"I came here six years ago and it was a bit of a culture shock. We were known as the league whipping boys, there were a few in-house issues and with a sticky past, it's hard to get past that but I feel that now we're here, we can show people that we've changed and that we are a good club behind closed doors."
It's a moment in time to pause and reflect on how leaving Bethanga has shaped the Saints.
"I don't think it really helped the situation but it didn't destroy it either," Barry said. "The club survived on location in the last 15 years.
"It's well-documented the club hasn't been that successful on the field but a lot of that has to do with our situation.
"We've been living out of a portable building for 10 years.
"The move to Wodonga will be a successful one once the facilities are up and running. The move, long-term, is the right decision, but it's taken a lot longer than people expected to establish ourselves in Wodonga because of that lack of facilities and community support.
BEHIND THE SCENES - IN CASE YOU MISSED THEM:
"We weren't going that well when we came in.
"They had a real tilt at it in the first couple of years when they came in, they played in a grand final but it petered out from there because the facilities didn't come.
"I think there's always doubt in people's minds (when you're losing). However, we've been lucky enough to have a very resilient group of people at our club that could always see a light at the end of the tunnel and that if they kept putting the work in, the result would eventually come.
"A lot of clubs, in the post-COVID era, are struggling but because we've been through adversity for so long, it probably didn't affect us as much. We're used to it, we're a tough group and we've been able to keep powering through.
"There were times when you wondered if it was ever going to happen but we're certainly moving in the right direction now and having council support to do that has been fantastic.
"To get to where we are today has been a real journey for everyone involved and it seems to be almost a sense of relief that we've finally got something to call our own and a strong future."
After years of drought, the Saints' thirst for a change of fortunes is clear.
Now, how about that coffee?
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