Shahid Khalfan was highly involved in the Central West Bulls Country Championship win and was named Player of the Tournament. The Central West Bulls are the New South Wales Country Champions after their 45-21 victory over Illawara on Sunday in Tamworth. 4 Harden Red Devils were a part of the 2019 squad. Khalfan played a stellar carnival and helped guide the Central West side to redemption after they were beaten by Illawara in last year’s final. He was joined by Harden Coach Jack O’Connor, Harden President Ben Lenehan and Harden number 8 Aaron Seamon as 4 Devils in the Central West squad. Shahid said, “It was a big weekend. I was surprised but I will take it while I can get get it.”
Khalfan heaped praise on his team mates. “Ben Lenehan shouldn’t be too far off Country selection and was named best Back for 2019 which included the New Zealand tour and the weekend. He was safe as houses. He was unreal. The first 40 or 50 minutes of game 2 was incredibly quick. The first 40 minutes of game 2, I don’t think the entire team made an error. We were nearly error free.”
The driving force to continue and take up the challenge of representative football was made easier by the commitment of each of the Harden players. Khalfan said, “It was 2 and a half hours to training each Sunday morning for an hour and a half session. Training has been in Orange. The club atmosphere at the Devils was taken with us. Aaron got the clubmen of the year for Central West. He couldn’t play because of injury but he was great and ran the water and was a great team helper.”
At 31 Shahid may not have thought he would grace the representative scene again, however, he is looking after his body and making sure he is ready to go.
He conceded that this year’s South West competition has been tougher than last year’s and he said you can never be sure what will happen in a one team one town comp. The Devils will welcome 5 home games after being on the road for much of the first round of competition.
The achievement of the Harden contingent is made even more phenomenal by the fact they didn’t play in the positions they have been playing in for the Red Devils. Khalfan normally plays Five Eighth and played Half back for CWB. O’Connor plays at Inside Centre and played Five Eight for CWB while Lenehan plays in the Outside Centre Role and played Fullback for CWB. The Country side will be announced at the end of this week. All of the Harden players must be in contention for selection and with Khalfan’s Player of the Tournament award, he must be right in the mix.
He was humble when asked what it would mean to be picked. He said, “I would be pretty proud, pretty chuffed. I didn’t think I would be playing representative rugby in what are my latter years of what I would call my career, you only get once chance and I would make the most of it if selected.”
Jack O’Connor guided the side around at Five Eight and said, “It was a cracking weekend, we got a good win over Central North and beat former premiers from last year in Illawarra. The boys have been preparing for the last 6 months. It was a mix of new players and former players from last year. Everyone came together and played great across the weekend. Shahid played played particularly well on Sunday and Ben much the same at Fullback. It was a shame Aaron had a hamstring injury but he was huge all weekend helping to manage the side and look after the players.” O’Connor heaped praise on the forwards and the ‘lightning’ backs out wide. He said. “It would surprise a lot of people if Shahid and Ben aren’t in the mix for Country. It was great to see representation from our club and our region. I’m really proud to have been involved with this team.”
Ben Lenehan kicked 5 from 7 conversions in the final and played Fullback on both days. He said, “Jack got a good try on the first day and the kicks were coming off my boot pretty well. It was good to play amongst a good squad and Shahid’s service from Half back was impressive. We were up 31-0 at half time and we knew they were going to come back and give it a crack but we shut them back down when they got a sniff in the second half. Saturday night was good in that we had a strict recovery and got in a freezing pool which was a bit like an ice bath. We had a quiet night and everyone was fit and firing and ready to go for the final. Shahid should be a front runner after his weekend.” The Devils including their Central West stars will be taking on the Cootamundra Tri-Colours at 3:15pm at Robert’s Park on Saturday and will enjoy 5 straight home games. They will be raising money for prostate Cancer and wearing jerseys from the Jugiong Motor Inn. As club President, Lenehan’s attention turns to Coota and he hopes to rally the troops and get a win over Coota.
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