Newington struggled in tight games throughout 2023, but sent a warning to the rest of the competition with an impressive win over Scots in a recent trial.

Coach Tim Rapp has altered his side’s game plan for the upcoming season and seems confident his side will be in the hunt towards the backend of a tight competition.

Overview with Tim Rapp: 

“We were pleasantly surprised with our win over Scots. From what I’ve heard on the grape vine, Scots are expected to be the team to beat this year. They’ve got a lot of quality players and a lot of guys that played representative rugby last season,” Rapp said. 

“To beat them 36-7, we were really happy with that and pleased to play with so much consistency this early on in the season. 

“We’re hoping that things have clicked for us. I think our guys now know the level that they can play at and I think they were probably unsure of that before that game. 

“It’s always a battle with school kids, but now we’ve got to try and make that performance our new normal and be consistent moving forward. 

“We added Brad Harrington as our strength and conditioning coach this year and he’s done a great job. 

“We identified that our S&C was an area that we needed to improve because we don’t have the same depth as some of the bigger schools like Joeys and Kings. 

“Because we don’t have as many players, we need to try and keep as many of our players healthy and available as possible and that all starts from work off the field and in the gym. 

“If we want to be consistent, it makes a massive difference if we can name the same team or a similar team each week so that we can play the style of footy we want to play. 

“We went out to Mudgee for our senior camp and spent a lot of time working on our rugby, which was great. 

“Because we have a few returning players, we had some foundations to build on and that allowed us to move through things quicker than we have at previous camps.”

What style of rugby will we see from Newington this season?

“We’ve made changes to our style this year and that’s why we needed to spend a bit more time on our rugby knowledge at our camp. 

“We’ve got some really good, high-level backs with plenty of speed. A lot of those boys have a rugby league background so we’ve adapted our style a little to suit their skillset. 

“We probably don’t have as much size and power compared to previous seasons either so we’ve built a game model that is a bit more expansive and we’ve challenged the boys to build their skill and fitness level from 1 to 15 to allow us to do that. 

“The good thing about some of our boys is that most of them have always played both league and union and at the moment, particularly after the performance on the weekend, they are excited about playing rugby this season.

“They are able to make a few more decisions on the fly in rugby, compared to league which is more structured, and they all seem to be enjoying that.”

2024 Squad: 

“We’ve got four or five guys returning from last season and they are all in year 12,” the coach told Rugby News. 

“The majority of winning GPS teams seem to have an abundance of year 12 players, which we saw with Kings last year so we’re excited to see what our experienced guys can do this year. 

“Then there is a good mix of players pushing through from the 16s and our second and third XV from last year. They are mostly year 11 boys and haven’t experienced first XV rugby yet, but they are really excited about the challenge.”

What are you expecting from the season ahead? 

“I think Scots will still be the team to beat, definitely,” Rapp said. 

“They just had one of those days against us. Everything worked for us and nothing came off for them and that happens sometimes. Unfortunately, we don’t get any points for that win. 

“Looking across the competition, I think there will be a lot of teams fielding quite a few players who don’t have much first XV experience. 

“Because of that, I think it’ll be a week-to-week proposition in terms of who can beat who.

“With the 10-round comp, you’ve almost got to break the season in to two blocks. You play six rounds before the holidays, plus three trials. So there’s nine games. 

“Then it almost comes down to who gets through the representative block healthy for the last four games. 

“If you start the season well, more of your players end up playing rep footy and then you can potentially lose some of them to injury, which can really square up the competition. 

“It’s going to be tight this year though, which is exciting.”