Two time Shute Shield premiership winner Cam Treloar has taken charge at West Harbour and has set about “building the Pirate ship.”

The former Warringah lock seems well placed to help the Pirates fulfil their potential, particularly the forwards, and he’s got a shiny new facility at Concord Oval to do it from.

Image: J.B Photography

Overview with Cam Treloar: 

“I think we’re in a reasonably solid position a few weeks out from round one,” Treloar told Rugby News. 

“We still haven’t locked in our best XV just yet and we intentionally wanted to use all of our trials to give players a chance to play their way into that top side. 

“With one trial to go, we’re still not quite there but it’s certainly taking shape. 

“The positive from that is that we’ve got strong competition for spots and we’ve got more depth than potentially the club has had in recent years. 

“That carries on right through the grades because if we’re strong in first and second grade, then players are pushed down to strengthen third grade and fourth grade. It’s great for the club and bodes well for a good season. 

“We’ve worked really hard over the summer to formulate our identity as a club. We’ve been saying that we’ve been working on “building the Pirate Ship.” We want a shared identity that we can all call on when things get tough and we want to set standards that we all stick to. 

“We’ve kept things really simple in how we’re looking to play. We’ve got a highly skilled group that know how to capitalise on opportunities. If we can create opportunities by playing smart, simple rugby, then we’re confident we can convert that into points. 

“Moving back into our new facility at Concord has changed everything. The gym has become the heartbeat of the club and at times we’ve got 70 to 80 people coming through in an afternoon. 

“We’ve got offices for our general manager and the coaches across the road as well so we’ve always got a good flow of people coming through. 

“We want to make it really hard for other sides to win at Concord. The danger in that can be that you expect the home ground to do the job for you and we’ve seen a few times lately that teams have moved back into their home grounds and then not performed as well as they should have early.

“We can’t rely on the ground to win games for us, but at the same time, we’re all really looking forward to playing at home throughout the season.”

2022: 11th

Ins: Max Clementson (England 7s), Josh Thompson (Two Blues), Hunter Cowan (New Zealand), Calum Sirker (England). 

Outs: Paddy McBride (Wales), Greg Hutley (Ireland), Chris Ebeling (sabatical), Kuki Maafu (retired). 

Players to watch:

“Taine Rush was playing colts last season but he’s really put his hand up to earn a spot in the centres in first grade,” Treloar explained. 

“Enari Kalifi has also looked really good in the midfield. He’s played more as a winger in the past but has looked really good in our early trials. He’s a big body that knows how to get over the gain line. 

“Max Clementson has spent the last two years in a professional environment with the English 7s. 

“He’s added a new level of professionalism and a new level of expectation around what he expects from the players around him, which has been really positive. He’s also extremely fit and the other players are trying to match his levels of fitness. 

“I also think Justin Masters will have a big year. He’s been around for a while now but he’s moved to fullback and is looking to make that 15 jersey his own this year. I think he’ll be really dangerous with the extra space he gets at fullback compared to the wing.”

What style of rugby will we see from West Harbour this year? 

“We’ll play a simple style. We’re a team that likes to offload and we’ve got a lot of big powerful players who can get their shoulders through contact so we’ll look to play off the back of that. 

“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel and while it might look like we’re not doing much, that’s been quite intentional. We want to keep things basic and capitalise on the power that we’ve got in our game. 

“Under Joe Barakat, our forwards made massive gains last year with their lineout. Competition wide, the lineout was the biggest source of points in 2022. While we weren’t quite where we needed to be last year, we weren’t a long way off and we’ll continue to work at that throughout 2023. 

Which two teams will play in this year’s grand final and why?

“Outside of West Harbour, the two teams we might play in the grand final are probably Easts and Norths. They’ll both be exceptionally strong. 

“For us, I think we can be in and around the edge of the top six and can be fighting for those fifth and sixth spots towards the end of the season.”