Lochie Simpson joins Wodonga Raiders after brief stint with rival club North Albury

The 206cm giant played for the Albury-Wodonga Bandits this year before playing the last three rounds of the season for North Albury reserves.

Simpson cut short a holiday in Jervis Bay last week to drive home and jumped straight out of the car to be part of the Raiders' first training session and complete a 2km time trial.

Raiders coach Marc Almond said Simpson had made a good first impression with his new teammates.

"Lochie made a good first impression when he drove back from Jervis Bay and literally jumped out of the car and straight onto the training track," Almond said.

"So he is committed to making this work for him."

Simpson, 21, played football as a teenager and showed some promising signs after being part of the Sydney Swans Academy.

However, he has focussed on his basketball career for the past five years but now wants to test himself in the Ovens and Murray.

Almond felt Simpson had all the attributes necessary to make a successful transition from basketball.

"We think Lochie has got the skills set which is transferable from what he has been doing in his basketball career over to football," he said.

"It's not like that he has never played football previously, he played football until he was 16 and then focussed on basketball.

"So it is not that big of a shock to him and last week and this week at training he has pleasantly surprised a lot of us to be honest.

"Lochie is athletic and moves well for a guy his size and his kicking skills are better than I thought they would be.

"He is all in and is a professional the way he approaches his sport and has got high standards in regards to the way he prepares and trains.

"He has played at a high level of basketball now for an extended period of time, so he is fairly driven in what he wants to do and achieve.

"He is putting that passion into football now and we have had three or four sessions and he is doing extra work in each session.

"So we feel with his work ethic that he will fast-trak his development and we are excited to see the player he could end up being."

Almond is hoping Simpson can form a formidable ruck combination with developing ruckman Indhi Kotzur who played with the Raiders this season when free of Murray Bushranger commitments.

"We see Lochie playing in the ruck," Almond said.

"We are a bit fortunate because Indhi Kotzur is a developing ruckman that has gone on in leaps and bounds over the season just gone.

"How much he plays Murray Bushrangers this season as a top age kid, we will wait and see.

"But if we have both of them it would be a potent ruck combination given their size and Indhi has grown another 3cm since the end of the season.

"So he will keep developing and we have also signed the Ryan twins (Jaxon and Blake) from Leeton who are only teenagers but quite athletic and tall and another boost to our big man stocks."

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