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Dawn for The Sleeping Giant

Dawn for The Sleeping Giant

Nick Swann10 Sep 2012 - 16:35
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Coach Nick Stocker talks about last season, pre-season, players to watch and his aspirations for this season.

Last season proved to be a mixed bag for the Horsham senior squad. Despite improved consistency in availabilities and performances, both the First team and the Lions ended the league campaigns with a degree of disappointment. The 1st team finished 6th in a hard fought campaign, and but for 4 results where losses of a single score or less, would have ended the season a far more creditable 4th from which to build this season. The Lions, despite playing rampant running rugby for most of the season and racking up cricket scores, failed to win the two crunch matches and ended up outside the promotion spots – a point that would need to be rectified this season.

This upcoming season shows a great deal of promise. The changes in the management of the club off field have been matched by on field changes with a new coaching structure and new players. More importantly, we have retained most of our players for the upcoming campaign and as such the coaches have increased strength in depth on which to base this season. We have implemented a new fitness regime which the players have bought into and have started to embed the patterns of play that we aim to produce across the senior squads. Building further from the foundations of last year, we aim to continue to play an attractive expansive style of rugby that is not only enjoyable to play, but also to watch. Early indications with winning performances against Crowborough and Bognor suggest that the players are starting to understand the plays with some excellent tries already in the bag. This weekend, our final preseason fixture against takes place against local team Cranleigh in what we hope will be the final confirmatory fixture before we announce our squads for the coming season. This is likely to cause a number of headaches given the performances of some players to date, and for others, it will give one extra opportunity to force themselves into the squads.

In terms of players to watch. Jamie Gibbs has started this season where he left off last season. His performances last season led him to a tie break vote for Player of the Season losing out to Neal Holden on the casting vote. He has already shown that he means to wrest this award back from Neal with some trademark tackles and more telling for opposition defences with some scintillating running and tries. Adam Day has re-joined the club following a stint at Worthing and having moved forward to the Front Row has already shown that he will offer stiff competition for places and in doing so keeping Neal Holden and Giles Barber on their toes for performances. Rob Grantham – Hill has worked exceptionally hard in the off season in the gym and his added strength is already showing across the park with greater physicality than in previous seasons. We have had a number of new players join and most notably Scott Price and Mark Brandon who have transferred in from Crawley. Scott was the proverbial thorn in Horsham’s side when we played Crawley over recent years stealing a great deal of ball at the breakdown. He has continued in the same vein with Horsham and will add a great deal of spice into Horsham’s squad with his physical aggressive style of play as well as a great many turnovers. Mark, is a communicative (loud, vocal, gobby – take your pick) scrum half who can play 10. He has settled well and like all good scrum halves, barks at his team and riles opposition packs relentlessly. He has started to form a good understanding with Matt Brown who is this year playing at 10, and between the two of them, have a great deal of rugby understanding that will help develop our playing pattern further. The back row has been strengthened further with the addition of Pete Garrigan and Matt Redmayne. Pete is an Irish lad who has shown some very promising glimpses of his ability, Quick, strong and aggressive, he will surely add to the selection headache in the back row this season which is compounded further by Matt’s return from Worthing. Matt’s pace, strength and aggression in the contact will be a great addition to the back row. He has already shown an appetite for the “big hit” and with total disregard for his body, will surely play a starring role both on field and off over the course of the season. Although there are too many to mention individually, other players such as the Whiting brothers –Johnny and James, Johnny Ordidge, Sam Rice, Will Johnson, Iain Fisher, Nick Bell, Ryan Grover, Ben Pirt and the evergreen Splatts are all looking sharp and we expect big seasons from them all.

So, with all this said, what are our aspirations for the season? Given that we now have a strength in depth that we have not had for a few seasons, each week will see a number of the first team squad playing for the :Lions in second team fixtures. Although disappointing for some on an individual basis, this will add a great deal of strength to an already strong Lions side as shown by the 90 point defeat of Bognor 2’s last weekend. It will give regular Lions players more confidence to play the brand of rugby that we are aspiring to play. It is clear from last season’s disappointment that the quickest way to get the Lions playing a standard of rugby that meets the players expectations is to get promoted. As such the Lions are targeting promotion in the first instance, but should in fact do so as champions.

As regards the First Team, in order to continue the clubs development, it is vital that the First XV likewise continues to develop. Retention of our players, as well as successful new recruitment has added to the squad. We have proved competitive in the league in recent seasons if not always consistent. This year, we aim to turn those close defeats into victories, and develop a greater degree of consistency in performances. With strong teams awaiting us in the shape of Maidstone, Ashford, Folkestone and Tunbridge Wells, our work will be cut out. Further complicated by the fact that there are always upsets in this league caused by less fancied teams, this year more than recent years, I expect the league to be very competitive from day one with a number of teams holding similar aspirations. Horsham have targeted a top 3 finish and given the way the boys have started, with luck on the injury front (despite losing Liam Yeates to a broken ankle in training) this is entirely possible. Either way it is going to be an exciting season for Horsham and one that we are all very much looking forward to.

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