Kings first XV coach Hugh Perrett believes consistency is the key for his side this season, ahead of their GPS season opener against Riverview on Saturday. 

Kings defeated Riverview earlier in the trial period, but Perrett said his side’s form has been up and down throughout the trials. 

“We’ve played some really positive rugby but then we seem to follow that up with some less consistent footy and that has hurt us at times throughout the trials. 

“We’re a big effort team, all the boys are working really hard and when they get it right, they look really good. But then sometimes we follow up that good work with silly mistakes and that’s what we need to avoid throughout the season.”

Kings also defeated Newington, St Augustine’s, Scots and Waverley earlier this term but were beaten in a tight contest against Joeys. 

“We’ve got the potential to be a contender, but we’ll need to cut down our error rate and our defence needs to be more accurate,” Perrett said. 

“Our strategy and game knowledge is fairly good, but sometimes our execution in both attack and defence lets us down.”

Perrett said his side won’t be underestimating Riverview this weekend, despite the result of this year’s trial. 

“They’re a really improved team. We played them a couple of weeks ago and it wasn’t a pretty game. The conditions were horrible and it wasn’t a great spectacle,” he said. 

“But I watched their game against Joeys and they look to have cleaned a lot of things up and they are looking a lot sharper. 

“We’ll need to have a much better mindset heading into the match compared to the last time we played them because they are a different team now, they’ve improved a fair bit.”

In other round one fixtures, Scots host Newington and Joeys travel to play Shore on the opening weekend. 

“All the teams look really good this year,” Perrett said. 

“Shore look to be the big improvers and they could cause an upset or two throughout the season which will really shake things up. 

This is my seventh year coaching here and this is probably the one year that it’s been really hard to pick a winner heading into round one. 

“There is a lot of opportunity for everyone this year and that’s exciting and great for the competition.”