After failing to find their best in 2020, Riverview return with one of their most experienced squads in recent memory in 2021.

Anthony Cook’s side beat an impressive Barker side last weekend and appear to be building nicely ahead of round one.

Overview with Anthony Cook:

“We’ve had quite a positive trial period and we play Joeys in our final trial this weekend, which will give us a good indication of where we are at.”

“We had a strong performance on Saturday against Barker, but we still have a lot to work on. We let a few chances slip and that turned it into a tight contest but the boys showed a lot of resilience to close the game out.

“We’ve been trialling a lot of different combinations through the trial period and haven’t played with the same team twice yet this year.

“We’re making sure that we’re testing all possible combinations so that we end up with the right guys in the right positions. Even after winning last week, we still made changes for this week because we want the boys to really earn their spot in the side.

“Our discipline in defence was poor in some of our earlier trials, so we’ve been working hard to fix that and I think we started to see that in action last week against Barker.

“We haven’t had too many injuries either and that is really important. There are lots of niggles, but you get that when you play six tough trials back to back.

“We had a really interrupted preparation last season. Our college took the Covid restrictions really seriously and didn’t allow us to do much training at all.

“We went in underdone but we can’t say the same this season. We’ve had a good preparation and we’ve got through everything we needed to ahead of round one.

“We probably thought we could have done better last year so this year we’ve made sure we’ve responded to that and hopefully we get a better result.”

What style of rugby can we expect to see from your side this year?

“We’re not a big team, so we need to use the ball. There’s no secret there and the other teams will know that.

“It was interesting playing Barker because they play such a tough power game up the middle and we probably try to do the complete opposite of that.

“We know we’ve got to use the ball because we don’t have the world’s biggest forward pack but I think we can use that to our advantage as well.”

2021 Squad:

“It’s probably one of the most experienced squads we’ve had in a while. We are definitely year 12 dominant and I think we’ve only got three year 11 boys in the squad.

“That’s just the way it worked out, it’s not intentional. We had seven or eight boys returning and then a bunch of boys have stepped up from second and third grade from last year, which is great to see.

Players to watch:

“I think most of the other sides would know that we’ve got a few very talented boys within our squad. We’ve got some real talent and plenty of experience in our halves and we’re really fortunate to have that in such key positions.

“We’ve also got a few forwards returning and I think that’s really valuable to have that experience, especially in pressure situations like we had last weekend at the end of the game against Barker.”

Bold prediction for the season ahead:

“I think it’s going to be pretty close to be honest. Looking at the results throughout the trials, it doesn’t seem like there will be much between three or four GPS teams. On their day, I think every team can win in this competition.

“It’s cliche, but in schoolboy footy, you’ve got to be on your game every week because anything can and usually does happen.

“I think it’s the most even spread of talent across the GPS Schools that we’ve seen for quite a while and that’s going to make for a really tight and entertaining season.”