Seaton Rangers are geared up for their debut tomorrow in the Third Division of the National Conference.
Since being elected to the NCL in December it’s been all systems go at the village club preparing for life on a bigger stage than the Cumberland ARL.
They start with a home game, too, and expect a bumper crowd to support this venture as they are the first team from Allerdale to play in the National Conference.
Coach Ryan Campbell is delighted how his players have been training and says they are jumping out of their skins, looking forward to the opening game.
They face Eastmoor Dragons from Wakefield and Campbell admits he knows absolutely nothing about them.
“We’ve been concentrating on ourselves and I’m happy with the way the lads have worked over the last few months. We started training in November and have had a couple of friendlies.
“We beat Hensingham 22-20 but we used 30 players in that one, just to give people some game time so there wasn’t a lot to learn.
“But we followed-up against Egremont, taking a smaller squad, and that was a good test. Despite the 42-0 score-line we took a lot out of that game and I think we have learnt from it. They are Premier Division side and, to be fair, I don’t think the score accurately reflected the game,” said Campbell.
Seaton will be running an A team in the Cumberland Amateur RL and have around 35 players to service the two teams at the moment, with some younger ones coming through.
“One of our props Jordan Pritt is not available for the first game as he’s missing because of concussion protocols as he was injured in the Egremont game. Apart from that we will be at full-strength and I’m looking to gve a good account of ourselves,” says the coach.
Seaton have only added one outsider to the ranks from the squad which played in the Cumberland ARL last year. Gary Taylor, a full-back, has joined from Glasson Rangers.
“He just contacted me and asked if he could sign as he wanted to test himself at a higher level. He came and trained and has fitted in well,” said Campbell.
Final training session last night was at Derwent Park working with Workington Town as the Rangers were invited down to take part in an opposed session.
