The Greens started our 2020 season campaign with a three way trial against Maitland and Tamworth at Marcellin Park on Saturday. The Greens fielded two teams with the Blacks and the Pirates one each.

Coach Johan Lourens was pleased with the first up hit out by the squad that was without several established players and outscored both Maitland and the Pirates in each of the six halves that were played. New recruit Nick Dobson backed up from rep duty the night before and was the cornerstone of the pack and it is clear that Bill Dunn and the other No.2’s pushing for top grade selection will wrap their arms around his powerful frame with a great deal of confidence at scrum time in the season ahead.

Johan’s message to the players at his first meeting with the playing group back in November was to “forget everything that you have learned about rugby” as he instituted a new style that sees the forwards encouraged to wrestle and offload when going into contact and the halves with a licence to run at every opportunity when they have vacant grass in front of them.

The Greens scored a couple of tries from the close passing and offloading style with Sam Rouse latching on to a number of ‘popped’ balls in a manner reminiscent of how Russell Fairfax used to feed off Arthur Beetson’s deft ball skills in the thirteen a side code in the mid ’70’s.

James Sneddon made several solid runs and bent the line every time he touched the ball and displayed some smarts with the football. One of his offloads to Josh Mills missed its mark by millimetres and a certain try went begging.

However, it was the first hit out of the year and no one was being critical, to the contrary, Coach Lourens wants to see more of the wrestling and more of the offloading in order to ask more questions of the opposing defensive line.

One of the new recruits was so impressed with Johan’s knowledge of the game he commented that he is ‘a professor of rugby’. Nicknames and MCRC go hand in hand – Johan just found his, or it found him ‘The Professor’ – someone just has to find the intestinal fortitude to acquaint him with his new moniker.

The day wasn’t without casualty, Ethan Fowles nose now has some lateral shape after it was broken by a stray high shot, goodbye to the boyish good looks, hello to some facial ‘character’ that is pretty much a right of passage for those that play in the single digit jumpers.

None of the players looked out of place in the games despite some of them playing out of position.  Although it is doubtful that Sam Spence and Tommy Fitzsimmons have any great desire to pursue their careers in the 2 and 3 jerseys respectively!

New recruits Eddie Asiata, Warren Parnell, Atino Viahu (just call him T) and Ryan Huckerko all made solid contributions in the backline – they’ll enjoy their time at MCRC.

It was good to see Ollie Crowe on the side of the scrum in the P1 trial and being hoisted high at line out – someone observed that it’s not often that you see ‘crow(e)’s soar like eagles, but fly high he did and with great effectiveness.

We will have one team in the NHRU gala day this Saturday followed by the Meet the Players function at the Green Room that will be low on formality and high on camaraderie and a good opportunity to meet Johan, coaches and players that will be turning out in Green in 2020.

by Stephen Reid,
Merewether Carlton President