Former Sydney Hills Eagles player, Ben McNiece, is back in Brisbane will be back at the Morningside Panthers in 2015.
After spending a season in Sydney, McNiece has been back in his hometown for a month and it didn’t take him long to decide where he would play his footy for 2015.
“It was a really easy decision, based off work and the fact that I live just down the road,” he said.
“I’ve played at Morningside basically my whole life other than this year… (so it was) a pretty easy decision to go back.”
While he wasn’t playing footy for the Panthers in 2014, the 22 year-old watched his former teammates play off in the major semi-final, with the atmosphere shoring up his decision to head back to Jack Esplen Oval.
“Probably that first final against palm beach at Morningside I think just sitting there, just made my decision even easier with so many people down around the club from both sides as well,” he said.
“And it was the whole social side (too) – with everyone hanging around the clubhouse after and seeing everyone enjoy it so much.”
The bond McNiece shares with plenty of current senior players down at Morningside helped him as well.
“A lot of the guys I’ve played with and won a U18s premiership with a lot of them,” he said.
“Some of them I’ve been playing with since we were about eight year olds – makes it easier to fit in and when other guys come along and slide into it as well which is great.
“I think everyone who plays down there always come back and the whole club is still your mates really.
“Everyone always goes back to play or just socially, because it’s where all our best friends still are.
McNiece will be a more than handy addition to the Panthers side in 2015, one of the Eagles’ standouts in 2014.
The Panther junior is also a former NEAFL Under-22 representative and was a Rising Star nominee in 2012.
