![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/557592600_7903151070_94734.jpg\")
Signing off: Cam McCallum has announced his retirement after seven seasons at Ballarat.<\/p>\nNORTH Ballarat has hit paydirt with its early recruiting for 2026, addressing its two biggest needs.<\/p>\n
On the heels of former Collingwood VFL captain Sam Glover\u2019s decision to step away from the state league to return to his home club, the BFNL\u2019s Roosters have signed accomplished state league ruckman David Brinker-Ritchie.<\/p>\n
A top-up player with VFL club Box Hill during Roosters coach Clint Proctor\u2019s tenure in 2022, the 201cm Brinker-Ritchie is the dominant ruckman North Ballarat has been searching for.<\/p>\n
Proctor has nothing but positive memories of the ruckman\u2019s time with Box Hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a shortage of rucks when I was coaching Box Hill. Hawthorn had Ben McEvoy, Max Lynch and Ned Reeves, but McEvoy got injured and Lynch had some concussion issues, so that left us without one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to do a bit of an emergency deep dive and we found David out at Traralgon, playing in the Gippsland league.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe brought him across and he played 11 matches for us before going across to the SANFL (in 2023).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had an injury-interrupted last couple of seasons, but we\u2019re hoping to get him on the park and fit and firing and playing well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brinker-Ritchie will join fellow former Box Hill Hawk Josh Morris at Mars Stadium.<\/p>\n
The versatile Morris, who played 15 AFL games with Hawthorn before also making his way to Woodville-West Torrens in 2024, capped a stellar season for the Roosters in 2025 by winning the club\u2019s best and fairest.<\/p>\n
Proctor said the signings of Glover and Brinker-Ritchie filled the Roosters\u2019 two biggest needs going into the off-season.<\/p>\n
\u201cA ruck was the number one priority, no doubt, but Sammy Glover coming back is a real boost to our forward line. That would be a close number two,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always want a key forward, who can kick some goals, so he\u2019s going to be great.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed a ruck. It was a real issue with Cam (McCallum) being injured and missing a lot of footy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took us a while to find our groove especially in the ruck circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid will be great and it certainly doesn\u2019t take away from our young boys who are developing, like Finn Russell. Hopefully, he can play alongside him and get some ascendancy happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinn did a great job at the end of the year \u2013 he\u2019s got great potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see a lot of David in him actually in the way he\u2019s developing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s still pretty raw, but he\u2019s got good craft in the ruck; he just needs to establish himself around the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
Signing off: Cam McCallum has announced his retirement after seven seasons at Ballarat.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The need for a ruckman only grew last week after McCallum announced his retirement.<\/p>\n
With two big signings locked away, Proctor said development of the Roosters\u2019 young and rehabilitating talent would be a focus ahead of 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s about identifying kids coming through and homegrown talent and making our list a little healthier,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting guys like Jarrod Curran and Fletcher Loader full-time on the park will be really important.<\/p>\n
\u201cJamie Quick, for example, didn\u2019t play much last year, so we look at those guys as new recruits this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdding David and Sam Glover, that puts us in a position where we can play finals and compete.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to bring one more player, but I think we have the list and depth to be able to move forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Sam Glover, he\u2019s moving home, so he\u2019ll be at training every night \u2013 he\u2019ll make the place better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glover declared the move back to North Ballarat as a \u2018no-brainer\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally excited to be pulling the boots back on with North next year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t wait to get stuck in with the boys over summer and see how far we can go in 2026 and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Roosters finished the 2025 season in seventh spot, just missing a finals spot with a 7-10-1 record.<\/p>\n
Eliminated from finals contention in round 18 following a three-point loss to Darley, a good second half of the season was highlighted by wins over grand finalist Sunbury and Ballarat (sixth) and near-misses against Melton (third) and the Devils (premiers).<\/p>\n
While they had their chances against Darley, with Morris missing a late 50m shot on goal, Proctor took plenty of heart in the performance with an eye to the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs disappointing as it was, and then missing finals, it was great to play that way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt showed our brand of footy stacks up against the best.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it sets us up really well for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORTH Ballarat has hit paydirt with its early recruiting for 2026, addressing its two biggest needs. On the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-208292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}