After spending the best part of the last decade coaching professionally in Australia, the UK and Japan, Joe Barakat was looking forward to a quieter than usual winter in 2022.

But then came a call from West Harbour.

Barakat had watched his former club struggle in recent years and had heard whispers circulating that some rival clubs wanted the Pirates out of the Shute Shield competition.

“We let ourselves get picked on last year by dropping down to three grades and one colts team and they grouped West Harbour in with the other teams that they wanted to kick out of the competition,” Barakat told Rugby News.

“Clubs want all grades to play games every week and I can understand why that is important.

“But the thought of kicking out West Harbour, Parramatta and Penrith and not having any clubs west of Parramatta Road, that’s not going to help grow the game and it was something I couldn’t ignore.”

Barakat began his new role at West Harbour at the back end of 2021 but a number of key players from last year’s group had already decided to move on.

Despite that, the former Waratahs coach is confident the Pirates can turn things around this season.

“I’ve maintained a good relationship with the players that have left and I’m hopeful that they’ll return to the club at some stage and see that there can still be a strong pathway through West Harbour.

“But we’ve got to prove a point by winning games and we’ve got to build a better culture at the club so that we don’t lose players to our rivals.”

Barakat said defence and set piece had been the main focuses in the Inner West over summer.

“This club likes to score tries but there wasn’t a lot of interest when we didn’t have the ball last season.

“I won’t hide away from the fact that we’ve spent a lot of time working on our defence, around our accountability and our attitude.

“The better teams can win games without having lots of ball and that’s where we want to get to.”

Barakat said the club already has enough players at training to fill four grade and three colts teams in 2022, including a handful of key recruits.

“We’ve picked up Presley Tufuga who has come across from New Zealand. He’s a No.8 who has played Mitre 10 Cup for Auckland and can also play lock.

“We’ve also picked up Damon Foley from Souths, he’s a big strapping forward who was close to giving the game away and I’m really excited to see what he might do in the right environment.”

The Pirates’ open their season with clashes against Western Sydney, Manly, Sydney Uni and Souths and Barakat appears confident that his side will be more than competitive throughout the 2022 season.

“I hate losing and I don’t like talking about rebuilding because that just gives you an excuse to lose.

“Our focus is to win games of rugby and we’ve got good enough personnel to do that this year, finish in the top eight and play finals footy.

“Anything less than that would be unacceptable.”