RUGBY UNION
The Gosford ‘Red Devils’ have recommitted themselves to the Central Coast Rugby Union competition in the Men’s Premier One and Two leagues for the upcoming 2022 season, with growth in the juniors preparing them for entry into the senior Women’s as well.
The club experienced difficulties in fielding high-grade teams throughout the first years of COVID-19 and its many interruptions in community grade sport but newfound momentum is driving the family-orientated club to reform their top teams and give their juniors something to strive toward.
In the eyes of Gosford’s registrar and long-serving club member Scott Thornton the pre-season process has revolved around reconnecting with previous players and re-establishing the club’s culture.
“The big thing we’re trying to drive through is to bring the culture back that COVID kind of devastated,” Thornton said.
“Our culture is about putting on a barbecue, having group training sessions where some of the seniors get amongst the Juniors.
“That’s how it was in the old days: it was the senior players coaching and assisting with the juniors and then, whenever there were activities on at the club, everybody was down there.
“We’re a very family orientated environment and we kind of want to bring that back.
“The club has a lot of ex-players who have their kids now playing in the junior game, both boys and girls.
“There’s a lot of junior ex-players that are still involved in the club, so we kind of want to rally those guys around because they bring a lot of knowledge and a lot of depth on how the club used to be and how competitive Gosford was only three or four years ago when they made the Grand Final.
“The whole process at the moment is to develop any new and younger players that were in the Under 17’s to 19’s a couple of years ago and are in the seniors now, and they’re really getting involved.
“We’ve got quite big numbers already registered in the junior ranks and it looks like we’ll have a couple of ladies teams, in the Under 13’s and Under 17’s.
“That’s really exciting for us in terms of having the ladies involved and the young women coming through, so hopefully in the future we will have women competing in the senior ranks as well.”
The new season will open up this Saturday, February 19, with the ‘Sevens by the Sea’ Gala Day competition hosted by The Lakes Club at Slade Park, and Gosford will be in attendance from early in the morning, seeking to open the new season with some early silverware.
After this, the club have various plans to prepare for the season’s kick-off on April 2, including intense training regimes with local sponsor, Complete Boxing in West Gosford, and the hosting of touring club, Avondale for a Club Day on March 12.
Haakon Barry