AFTER making its finals return last season, Gunnedah has finals visions again for 2015.
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The Red Devils are getting ready to lock horns again, with training commencing on February 3.
Tim Walsh and Nik Hannaford will again be guiding them this season, keen to build on what they did last year.
“We wanted to have one more go at it,” Walsh said.
He expects to have a fairly similar roster to last season although there is talk of a few new faces popping up.
They have got a bit of a wishlist.
“We’re chasing a number eight,” Walsh said.
It was one of the problem positions for them last season.
They went through probably four number eights and four number sevens.
It started with the first game of the season, losing captain Peter Hughes.
“We’re also probably looking at someone to cover everything in the front row,” Walsh said.
With Cameron Kesby’s work situation, he might not be available for the first half of the season.
They’re also on the lookout for an outside back, with James Perrett moving over to the coast after taking a job as the ARU development officer over there.
One thing they did miss last season was a big centre who could crash the ball up and get that 10-15m past the advantage line.
The indications are that Jamie Mitchell will be back, which should rectify that.
“That’s his bread and butter, coming from rugby league,” Walsh said.
He’d like a number eight who can do the same thing.
The teams that did well had that guy at number eight that could make plenty of ground for them.
Once they lost Jeremy Brown and Joe Gardiner, the Devils struggled for that.
Walsh and Hannaford are eyeing off another semi-finals finish.
“Our goal would be to place ourselves higher than last year,” Walsh said.
“That’s our first goal.
“Where we got to last year it would be a bit disappointing to be playing off for the second tier.”
If everything falls into place he can see little reason they can’t, although they will have to hit the ground running.
“We’ve got two big games at the beginning,” Walsh said.
As the draw stands, they’ve got Pirates followed by Moree.
And if there was one thing that they drew from last season, it was that you have to start well.
At times they could match it with any of the teams in the competition but they generally struggled to convert their dominance into points.
“What we couldn’t do was we could dominate the set piece and dominate field position but we couldn’t score points,” Walsh said.
That cost them in a few games.
One of their first outings will be their Tens for Ten Thousand tournament on March 7.
The club ran the tournament for the first time last season.
“It’s filling up pretty quickly,” Walsh said.
“Half the Central North teams have already nominated.”
Southern Beaches will also be returning to defend their title.
Walsh said there’s also been interest from Melbourne and breakaway Sam Michelsen’s old club in Auckland.
“We had 12 teams last year,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure we’ll get to 16.”