North Clare has scored a major coup for the 2010 season by signing former SANFL gun forward Nicholas Prokopec.
Prokopec joins the Roosters from the North Whyalla Football Club where he’s been playing for the past two seasons.
The prolific goal-kicker began his career at the Central Districts Football Club in 1999 as a 16-year-old winning the under-17s Best and Fairest award.
He was also the Vice-Captain of the State under 16s team.
The following year he played under-19s and Reserves at the Bulldogs and represented South Australia in the under-18s competition and again in the 2001 season.
2002 was a good year for Prokopec being a member of the Bulldogs Reserves Premiership team and once again playing in the State under-18s team.
2003 was even better playing in another Reserves Premiership with Centrals, was runner-up in the Club Best and Fairest award, won the SANFL leading goal-kicker award with 94 goals, won the SANFL Reserves Magarey Medal and was a member of the State under-20s team.
Prokopec moved up the ranks to League football with Centrals in 2004 and was the captain of the State under-20s team before making the move out to the West Adelaide Football Club in 2005 playing League football where he won the Presidents Trophy in 2006.
He started 2007 with Westies before retiring in July due to work commitments and was recruited to the South Gawler Football Club where he won the leading goal-kicker award booting 52 goals in 9 games.
In 2008 Prokopec moved to Whyalla and joined the North Whyalla Football Club as an assistant coach and Captain of the Club. He was the Whyalla Football League premiership captain, Whyalla Football League Team of the Year member, he nailed 94 goals in 15 games to win the League’s leading goal-kicker trophy but a knee injury forced him to have a reconstruction in October 2008.
Prokopec began 2009 as assistant coach and captain of the club, Whyalla Football League assistant coach and selector and returned to the playing arena in July to win the club’s leading goal-kicker award with 56 majors in only 7 games.
He can obviously play the game and North Clare coach George Coles is delighted to have the 26-year-old at the club.
“As a club we probably lacked someone to finish our work over the last couple of years, it will probably take him a little while to settle into North Eastern footy but he’s a proven goal-kicker so we’ll be looking forward to him continuing that form,” Coles said.
“It will take a bit of pressure off the guys that have had to kick goals in the past. Obviously he’ll be our main forward target, there’s no doubt about that but I suppose that puts a little bit of pressure back on the midfield and the defence to get the ball up to him enough,” Coles said.
The Roosters had 35 players out on the track prior to Christmas and they’ve got a social evening on Friday, January 22, incorporating a 2-kilometre time trial before pre-season training fires-up on February 2.
One down-side for the Roosters in 2010 will be the no-show of 2007 NAFA Mail-Medalist John Nicholas who’s returning to the Orroroo Football Club for a year.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter