Shore coach Hadley Jackson believes his team has built nicely through the 2022 preseason and trial period and will be raring to go when the GPS regular season kicks off on Saturday. 

“At this stage it looks as though we’ll get a full season in which hasn’t been the case for a while, so I think everyone is excited to be playing plenty of rugby again. Hopefully that continues over the next couple months,” Jackson told Rugby News. 

 “We’ve been happy with our preseason. We played against a lot of the CAS schools and then had a run against Scots last week. We’ve been building nicely and it was good to get a look at the GPS competition in the form of a strong Scots outfit last weekend.

“We know where we’re at and where we need to get to, so we’re looking forward to the rest of the competition.”

Shore claimed impressive victories over St Augustine’s, Knox, Oakhill and Trinity during the trial period, then fell just short against Scots last weekend. 

“Scots started very strongly and got away to a lead and it took us a little while to get our intensity up to where it needs to be. 

“When we did though, we played some really good footy. Now that we know the level that we need to be at, we need to make sure we play like that from the kickoff.”

Hadley said defence would be the key to his side’s premiership chances this season.  

“We’re a fairly skilful side so we’ll try to move the ball around as much as we can. But in this competition, if we’re going to be competitive, we’ve got to be really strong in defence so that will be the main focus for us. 

“If we can defend well, then get some ball in good field position, then I’m confident we’ll be able to move the ball around and score some good tries.”

Shore host Joeys in their opening round clash on Saturday and Jackson said his side was looking forward to the challenge. 

“It’s always a really good test against Joeys and it’s great to be playing them first up. They’ve played some tough matches already against Scots, Barker and Riverview so it’ll be good to see how we measure up.  

“We’ll be putting everything into it because we have a five week break after this game before round two, so it’s a really good opportunity to set our season up.”