He led them to a drought-breaking Tamworth first grade premiership last season, but Jye Paterson admits when he was forced off the field during last month's Central North second grade grand final, he feared he would be watching at least the first half of Bective East's 2022-23 campaign from the sideline.
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Paterson was hard to miss amid Pirates' celebrations with his left arm in a sling.
"I got tackled and just landed straight on my shoulder pretty much, I just kind of felt it go straight away," he reflected.
Understandably, his thoughts did wander to the implications for the cricket season which was then only a few weeks away.
But fortunately the injury wasn't as bad as feared.
"I did the ac in my shoulder, but it was only a low degree one," he said.
"It's still a little bit sore when I do something stupid with it but it's on the mend and getting better every day."
He reckons he should only miss the first couple of games, which he was set to anyway.
He is currently in the the US with his father Chris visiting cattle studs, and looking at bulls for the families' Heart Angus Stud.
Over there since Sunday, when he spoke with The Leader on Friday, Paterson was in Nebraska, having started in Montana and wound their way through Wyoming.
The first time he has done the trip, his dad has been over three times before, it has been pretty packed so far.
About half-way through their trip, Paterson said they've probably seen "a bit over" 1000 bulls.
"A few of the big places out here have a lot of little cattle," he said.
"You kind of go to a few of the big places and you see 400 calves."
Some of the studs they are visiting they have existing relationships with, having used bulls from them in the past.
"But we're (also) going to a lot of new studs and seeing what they're using and what bulls are working well for them," Paterson added.
The geographical and time difference has made for a few added challenges selecting the Bective teams for this weekend's opening round of the season, especially with Chris also the Bulls second grade captain.
The weather forecast though isn't ideal for games going ahead on Saturday.
Going into the season as defending champions for the first time in 18 seasons, Paterson said they should have a pretty similar squad to last season and everyone is "super excited" to get out there again.
"All the boys are really excited for a pretty good year, if the weather kind of sticks away for us for the first few months anyway," he said.
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