AROUND 100 young rugby players were put through their paces at The Armidale School on Sunday hoping to push their way into Northern Inland’s Junior Gold Cup squads.
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The trials were for the 15s and 17s sides to contest next year’s competition phase of the program.
Some of the trialists were involved in the program this year but, pleasingly, a lot were new faces.
“There were new faces everywhere,” Northern Inland hub manager Jamie Moore said.
“That was the pleasing thing, the amount of new players drawn to the trials.”
They had just on 90 trialists, which was up on last year.
“We had about 53 boys trying out for the 17s and about 37 for the 15s,” Moore said.
On top of that, there were a few exemptions.
It was a pretty full-on day.
New strength and conditioning coach Jake Douglas started off with a strength and conditioning session.
“Then we went into our age groups and did some skill work,” Moore said.
“After lunch we played a bit of cross-field sevens and finished with a bit of 15 on 15s.”
It gave the new coaching set-up a holistic look at the players.
“I think it’s important we get an opportunity to see their game craft as well as skills,” Moore said.
From Sunday they will be selecting about 40 players for each age group to continue in the pre-Christmas phase of the program.
That will entail a satellite session and three-day camp.
