After 23 years in the rugby abyss, the North Cronulla Sea Lice are back and will field a Subbies side in the Meldrum Cup this season.

The North Cronulla rugby club dates back to the 1960’s and later became Port Hacking, who merged with St George in 1989 to form Southern Districts.

North Cronulla Sea Lice, a side created by members of the North Cronulla Surf Lifesaving Club, broke away from Port Hacking in 1984 and played in several divisions through till 1995.

“The Sharks and Dolphins were already taken by other teams from Cronulla so we decided to go with the Sea Lice,” foundation member Frank Schreuder told Rugby News.

“The name came up after a few beers one night and I think it matched the eclectic nature of our group at the time. It was a bunch of young blokes who just wanted to have some fun and play rugby for North Cronulla.”

One player from the original North Cronulla rugby club played for the Sea Lice in their inaugural season and Schreuder said that tradition will live on, with a member of the original Sea Lice signing on to play in the front row this season, despite turning 50 a few full moons ago.

“Probably 50% of the players will be getting their first taste of rugby union. We’ve got a few league players, some soccer players. They’re all fit young guys and it’s great to see them playing the XV man game,” Schreuder continued.

“The rest of the players have played rugby before, but most of them haven’t played in quite a few years so it’s great to be able to bring those guys back to the sport as well.”

Self appointed Sea Lice captain and North Cronulla boat rower Mitch O’Neill said the stories from the Sea Lice glory days were often retold over a beer at the conclusion of the Australian Surf Life Saving titles.

“All the older boys who are rowing Veterans would always tell us about all the great times they had playing Sea Lice rugby for North Cronulla,” he said.

“Year after year we’d talk about how great it would be to get it back up and running and then last year we decided to make it happen.

“The local rugby league comp in Cronulla is quite poor these days and a lot of guys have given it away. A lot of the time you’re playing the same three teams every few weeks so everyone is excited to play in a bigger competition and give rugby a good crack.”

North Cronulla could arguably be the most prepared rugby side in the country at this point of the year. Technically, Sea Lice preseason began back in June last year when the North Cronulla boat rowers began preparing for their season.

The only issue is, half the side still don’t know how to play rugby.

“Fitness won’t be the issue but I think it’ll take us a bit of time to pick up the game. We’ve got former Southern Districts colts coach Mark “Bunga” Smith coaching us and I think he’ll have his work cut out for him early in the season, but I think we’ll get there eventually,” O’Neill said.

“I think the main thing is we’re getting guys who have stopped playing sport, back playing again.

“We’ve got a fairly strong culture in the boaties and we’re hopeful we can translate that to the rugby side. We’ve got a bus sponsor on board, so we’ll have plenty of bus trips and we want to make it a really fun, social and inclusive club.”

“We’d also like to attract some guys from outside of the surf club and maybe we might get a few of them down to join us on the beach next summer.”

The Sea Lice have partnered with Southern Districts ahead of their inaugural season. The side will play and train on the back field at Forshaw and in May, the Rebels will host a Lifesaving round, with free entry for all surf club members.

The Sea Lice will then play on the main field, after Souths’ first grade clash against Easts.

“We don’t know what to expect really but we’re confident we’ll be competitive,” O’Neill said.

“The Manly Savers are another surf club side and they’re in our division. Naturally we’ve already started writing them off, so as long as we beat them, we’ll be happy.”

The Sea Lice will make their official return tomorrow when they face a Waratahs Legends side in a five a side match at the Beach Rugby Festival at North Cronulla.

Anyone interested in playing with the North Cronulla Sea Lice is encouraged to contact the club through Facebook.