Pirates co-coach Jack Walsh has hailed Saturday's Armidale Knockout triumph as a really promising start as they begin what feels like a bit of a new era following the retirement of a number of stalwarts over the off-season.
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Collins brothers, Andrew and Tim, Brendan Rixon and Andrew Wynne have all hung up the boots.
They are among a raft of losses with Jayden Kitchener-Waters moving down to Newcastle and Lewyn Rapana and Daniel Wallace also not going around in 2024.
The departures, and unavailability of a number of other players, didn't seem to bother the 2023 Central North grand finalists too much though as they beat Armidale in the final to add another Knockout win to their tally.
Their first hit-out for the season, Walsh was really happy with what he saw.
"We've been working on a few things at training and it sort of came in ebbs and flows," he said.
"It was there and then fatigue set in and it sort of disappeared for a while and then there were moments that they were sort of stringing it together and pulled off what we've been working on.
"It's something that they're not going to get overnight, it's something that's going to take some time to get. But the moments that they did put it together, it worked out really well."
One of the most encouraging aspects was their defence.
They didn't have a point scored against them in their first three games and for the whole day would have conceded less than 20, which Walsh described as a "really good sign".
He also singled out the front rowers for particular praise.
Only travelling up with three, they played pretty well 200 minutes of football.
"It was a huge effort," he said.
It is one of the holes they do need to plug with the retirements of the Collins brothers.
Another is five-eighth, following Kitchener-Waters' move to Newcastle.
Between Andrew Moodie, Rixon and Kitchener-Waters a position they have for the last decade-plus had the luxury of a pretty established option, Sharpe and stalwart James Trappel at this stage appear to be the front runners to take over there.
Sharpe played 10 at the knockout.
"He's really keen to sort of take the reins and see how he goes there," Walsh said.
"Obviously he's gone from nine to 10.
"He did some really good things and we've got some things that we need to work on. But again it was our first hit-out."
He said Kitchener-Waters will be a loss but has faith they can fill the void.
Same for the front row with Joe Tufrey due back at some stage from his stint in Scotland with Cartha Queen's Park.
"There's a few irons in the fire," Walsh said.
"And there's some conversations that are being had with a few guys and things like that so we'll just sort of see what comes of that.
"But we've still got a couple of weeks until we go to Gunnedah."
Among those to impress on Saturday was new signing Blair Maloney.
"I think he's going to be a big pick up," Walsh said of the former Dungowan fullback.
"He's going to be somewhere in that backline and he was really promising on Saturday."
The likes of Nick McCrohan, who captained them on Saturday, and Mitch Mack also look like they're in for big seasons.
With a three-way trial with Inverell and Coffs Harbour in Inverell coming up this Saturday, all-in-all Walsh said things are looking "really good".
