CORNWALL coach Neil Kelly says that new signing Josh Tora will be a great addition to the club both on and off the field.
The Choughs have taken their roster of players up to 16 with the arrival of Tora, a Fiji-born utility back who has represented the Royal Navy’s Rugby League side.
Tora moved to the UK in 2008 and joined the Navy after settling in the country.
He attended Cornwall’s open player-trial earlier this year and is the latest to earn a contract for the club’s debut season off the back of it.
“Josh will be an absolute pleasure to coach and I have no doubt about that,” said Kelly of his latest recruit.
“He will be great to have around the club and for the culture that we are trying to instil in the rest of the boys.
“Josh is a positive and upbeat person and we are hoping that his personality is almost magnetic throughout the group.
“He runs good lines and can play almost anywhere in the side. As a Fijian, his heritage is important because I have always felt that every squad needs that South Pacific flavour.
“We’ve got that in our squad now with Josh and we can’t wait to see him in action when the season begins.”
Cornwall are the only team not to play on the opening weekend of the season, meaning their very first match as a club will come on Saturday 2 April away at North Wales Crusaders.
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HUNSLET coach Alan Kilshaw says starting the season on a 4G pitch will influence his selection this weekend.
They open their League One campaign on Saturday when they travel to London Skolars but having put together a strong squad Kilshaw has the luxury of holding back a few players, if need be, considering the artificial surface they will be travelling to in the capital.
“We’re all looking forward to it,” said Kilshaw of the season’s start.
“A challenge is the travel; we’re travelling on the day so it’s an early start.
“The pitch is a bit of a concern as well with some of our players. Wayne Reittie had a bit of a back injury in pre-season so we probably won’t risk him travelling down and then playing on the 4G.
“There’s a couple of others we might also save until the week after, as we’re pretty healthy.”
Kilshaw has also warned supporters not to expect instant success from the young team he has assembled for this year.
“Overall I’ve been happy with them,” he said. “They’re a young group and as coaches and supporters we do have to have some patience with them.
“Things are going to be a little up and down and they’ll mistakes, but they will learn from them as well.
“They’re a good group, one of the best I’ve worked with in terms of their attitude and their application.
“A lot of them are out doing extras early, they’re always looking to improve themselves and that’s what you want from any group.”
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KEIGHLEY COUGARS aren’t currently up to the level required to challenge for promotion, coach Rhys Lovegrove has admitted.
Despite building one of League One’s most impressive squads for the new season, the early indications have not been too positive.
After Challenge Cup elimination to Hunslet at the end of January, Keighley have lost home pre-season games on consecutive weekends to fellow League One big-hitters Oldham and Swinton Lions.
The 42-22 defeat to the Lions the week before drew concern for Lovegrove, whose side open their league campaign this Sunday with another game against Oldham, this time away from home.
“It answers a pretty brutal question straight away; are we as good as the teams that are going to be competing and pushing for promotion this season,” said Lovegrove.
“We know Swinton are right there. They caused us a lot of issues. There were no issues systemically; it was just about having a dig, winning your wrestles, winning your collisions, working hard from the inside.
“All those effort areas that we base our game on, they completely forgot about them.
“The difference between the two teams was Swinton’s ability to execute the small details at that level.
“We tried to match them with the tempo but the attention to detail was not there. It’s a steep learning curve for the boys.”
Lovegrove last week announced the appointment of Jack Miller as Keighley’s club captain for the upcoming season.
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SWINTON LIONS coach Allan Coleman says that there shouldn’t be too much read into the convincing victory at Keighley Cougars in their final pre-season game.
His side ran out 42-22 winners at Cougar Park against one of the sides expected to be rivals for promotion this season.
Ahead of the League One campaign finally getting underway this Sunday when Swinton welcome perennial strugglers West Wales Raiders, Coleman warned the last performance was not all as good as he would have liked.
“The result wasn’t really important to us,” he said of the Keighley trip.
“We wanted to win the game obviously, but it was all about the performance.
“I thought in the first half it was a really good performance, there were some new combinations.
“But in the second half I wasn’t really happy and the lads know that. I know it’s difficult when you’re in front on the score and you want to try things, and we did change a lot, but it’s a good thing to take into training because it shows we’ve a lot to work on still.”
However, he was pleased with young halfback Owain Abel, who is on a month’s loan from Pilkington Recs and made his debut in the Keighley game as he looks to earn a permanent contract.
“He’s potentially a great player,” said Coleman of Abel, who he worked with previously for the England Under-23 community team.
“Hopefully he’ll take his opportunity and get a contract with us. I know he’s keen on that.
“He’s shown glimpses, he went through the line a couple of times, and he’s brave and tough. He can defend well.”
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DONCASTER forward Jordie Hedges says he had little option but to put his health first and retire from Rugby League.
The 26-year-old last week announced that he would have to call it a day, having struggled for the past two years with serious knee problems after first suffering an ACL injury in 2019.
After six years, 85 appearances and 20 tries for the Dons – plus a Player of the Year award in 2019 – Hedges received the advice that he should retire from the game.
“At the end of last year my knee was a little sore,” he said.
“I saw a couple of surgeons, one that did my knee the year before and one I hadn’t seen before, and I’ve taken advice from both surgeons to retire.
“It’s not the way I wanted it to end; I didn’t get to end on my terms. I’m still 26 years old, which is not old at all.
“It’s a very tough decision but I had to put my family and myself – my own health – first.”
Doncaster owner Carl Hall paid tribute to Hedges and said the club will do all they can to support him moving forward.
“Jordie has been through a really tough time through injuries and, having been at the club for six years now, we are sad to see him go,” said Hall.
“He has a young family to think of now and, despite it being a difficult decision to retire, he has to think of them and what is best moving forward.
“We are all behind him every step of the way and will do everything we can to help him throughout his recovery process.”
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LONDON SKOLARS have strengthened their pack ahead of the start of the season with the addition of Harry Kaufman.
The forward has spent the past four seasons at Coventry Bears and had been training with the club, now rebranded as Midlands Hurricanes in pre-season, but has now linked up instead with the Skolars.
“Harry brings great experience and knowledge of this league and what it takes to be successful,” Skolars head coach Joe Mbu said of Kaufman, who has also played for Oxford and Workington Town.
“We have been a little short of forwards and this signing comes at an ideal time. Harry will be a big player for us this season.”
Skolars warmed up for Sunday’s League One opener at home to Hunslet with a 52-18 victory over the British Army in the Capital Challenge on Friday.
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MIDLANDS HURRICANES have taken their squad up to 28 players on the eve of the new League One campaign with the signing of Travis O’Loughlin and Adam Reed, two players who had been on trial over pre-season.
O’Loughlin played for the Hurricanes in their Challenge Cup defeat at Rochdale Hornets at the end of January, as well as in a pre-season clash against Bradford Bulls Reserves, when he scored a try, while Reed also featured in the latter game.
O’Loughlin, 20, is a hooker who joins from the Hull KR Academy, having previously also spent time at Castleford Tigers on a scholarship.
Reed, 31, is a local talent from the West Midlands who is new to the game, having switched codes by signing from Aldridge rugby union club.
However, he has shown his ability to play numerous sports, having previously represented Great Britain in Aussie Rules.
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NORTH WALES CRUSADERS coach Anthony Murray believes that his side’s excellent Challenge Cup run has demonstrated that they will be in contention at the top of League One again this season.
The Crusaders saw off third-tier contenders Swinton Lions and Hunslet on their way to becoming the only League One club to reach the fifth round.
Although their journey ended there with a 50-30 defeat to Championship side Sheffield Eagles, Murray believes he has seen evidence that they can back up last season’s third-place finish and be in the mix again in a league campaign which begins this Sunday away at Rochdale Hornets.
“These early Challenge Cup games have given us a really good indication of how well pre-season has gone, how well they’ve trained,” he said.
“It’s also given us an indication that we’re backing up how we played at the back end of last season with how we’ve started in these games.
“Let’s hope we can back that up in the league season, which again is going to be a competitive division, no doubt.
“There are going to be some fantastic games every week and our aim is to be at the right end of the table come the end of September.”
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OLDHAM coach Stuart Littler is confident his players have done everything they can to be ready for the new league season.
Littler joined the club following their relegation from the Championship at the end of last season but his tenure got off to an inauspicious start when the Roughyeds fell to a Challenge Cup defeat at home to amateur side Lock Lane at the end of January.
The late start to the league campaign gave Oldham another two months get things right and a pre-season victory at Keighley Cougars two weeks ago suggested things were heading in a more promising direction.
The season begins at last this Sunday with Keighley again the opposition, this time on home soil at the Vestacare Stadium.
“It’s been one of the longest pre-seasons I’ve ever known, but all credit to the boys,” said Littler.
“They’ve worked hard, reacted well and they keep responding every time we challenge them.
“We’ll have peaks and troughs, but it’s all about pulling together and showing what we are as a club.
”We got back on the horse quickly and righted a few wrongs. That was important. The boys reacted to their defeat in the Cup in the right way.
“We’ve had some real focus in the group, we’ve worked on some new structures, and we’ve been striving to put our best foot forward going into the league season.”
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ROCHDALE HORNETS Chairman Andy Mazey admits the club couldn’t have had many trickier ties to start the campaign than facing North Wales Crusaders.
The League One season finally gets underway this weekend with North Wales the opposition at the Crown Oil Arena.
The Crusaders finished third in the table last season and were the only third-tier side to reach the fifth round of this year’s Challenge Cup.
Rochdale themselves reached round four, where they fell to Championship side Barrow Raiders, and Mazey believes the club go into their league opener as slight underdogs.
“They had a fantastic year last year, reaching the play-offs, and they’ve started this year in a similar vein in the Challenge Cup with some really good wins,” he said.
“This is one of our local derbies really, there are not many derbies in the League 1. We’ve got Oldham and Swinton again but North Wales is one of our local games.
“We’re under no illusions that’s a tough one. The bookies are making them third favourites behind Swinton and Keighley, so I suppose on that basis we’re going into it with them as favourites and us as underdogs. It’s a really tough start to the season.”
Meanwhile, Louis Singleton has left the Hornets by mutual consent.
The forward joined the club from London Skolars for the 2022 season but has departed without making an appearance.
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WEST WALES RAIDERS coach Ashley Bateman couldn’t be happier to kick off their league campaign with a trip to Swinton Lions on Sunday.
The two sides met in the second round of the Challenge Cup in January, shortly after the Raiders coaching staff had all moved on from the club.
With many of the Raiders having only just signed terms ahead of that game, all the disruption and the lack of preparation took its toll, with the Lions running out 96-0 winners at Stebonheath Park.
With the hard work done since Bateman’s arrival as coach, he believes a rematch with the Lions will give a good account of just how far his side have come since.
“I know it’s a funny thing to say, but this is probably the best game for us to start the season with,” said Bateman.
“We’re behind the eight-ball because we did get started so late after everything that happened, but we’re just looking for improvement each week against teams that have had full pre-seasons. I’ve only had the guys for seven or eight weeks now, so we have been trying to squeeze everything in.
“But they have all been working hard in every session and buying into what we are trying to do.
“So Swinton on Sunday will be a good marker to see where we are following the Challenge Cup game.”
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