James hopeful of new stars

South Wales Scorpions‘ Head Coach Aled James believes that he may have unearthed a few more stars at the club’s open trials at Porthcawl RFC on Sunday.

Players from the length and breadth of the country turned up to try out, including hopefuls from North Wales, South Wales and even the Midlands, South West of England and London!
                                                                     
“The people we expected to do well have stuck their hands up,” said James. “Others have impressed too and we’ll be inviting those who have to train with us when we’re back in the New Year.”

It was a rigorous session that lasted almost two hours but James said that was the way to see which players were worthy of a place in a professional Rugby League side.

“We wanted to screen-test them for fitness to start with,” he said. “We then gave them some basic skill games before giving them a full scale 13-a-side match situation. This gave us a better judgement to how good they actually were as players.

“Each player will now receive an email later this week telling them whether they are in the training squad or not. If they are, they will come and train with the Scorpions from January.”

A number of the current Scorpions squad turned up to watch including Curtis Cunningham, Christiaan Roets and Neil Dallimore, the latter being the former Welsh Premiership rugby union player who at 28 years old, played his first ever game of Rugby League at last year’s trials before becoming a success in Championship 1.

“I wanted to come and watch as I was one of the players who came through the trials last year,” Dallimore said. “Everyone looked really enthusiastic out there which was good to see.

“It looks like that there were a few who could be good new additions to the club which will help us boost the squad for next year’s campaign. Last season we were going into the unknown but this year we know what to expect. I think we’ll have a good season. We’ll have less surprises and with the squad boosted by some of the lads from this trial, hopefully we’ll be up amongst the challengers in the league again.”