New coach of the Harden Red Devils Jack Alcorn (Right) holding the Anne McGuigan Shield after winning it for a fifth consecutive year last year.
After losing to the Boorowa Goldies in the finals at the end of last year, the Harden Red Devils have seen changes over the off-season with president Ben Lenehan stepping away from the role and being replaced by Charlie Brown.
Coaches Charlie Fairfield-Smith and Jack O’Connor stepped down from their roles and Jack Alcorn has stepped up into the Coaching role.
Jack had previously helped O’Connor and Fairfield-Smith in their roles as the Captain of the Red Devils and this year takes the step up into a higher leadership duty.
Jack believes the experience he gained under his two former coaches will be invaluable in his maiden head Coaching season.
“I think a lot of the Coaching skills I have can be contributed to them, they’ve both done terrific jobs and they both knew what they were doing, two good people to learn from though it’ll be a challenge I believe I’m ready for it,” Alcorn said.
“We’re still in talks with a few players, we’d like to bolster our pack and add depth there, nothing finalised as of yet but hopefully we can get a few signings over the line.
“We want to be more consistent this year, sorting out a game plan and sticking to it was a problem last year mainly due to having to name a fairly new team regularly due to injuries and unavailability. If we can improve our fitness, be better in the scrum and be more consistent, it’ll go a long way.
“We’re losing a bit of experience with Benny, Jack and Max O’Connor stepping back a bit, it’ll be easier to have an estimation on how we will go closer to round one.
“We’ve looked at possible trial games against Cootamundra as well as a few other teams but no trials are concrete as of yet. “We’ve started to get the ball rolling, we will try and lay down a bit more in the next few weeks and figure out exactly what’s going to happen.”
The Red Devils pre-season training will kick off next Tuesday 6:30pm at Robert’s Park, all those interested in playing for the Red Devils/She Devils are encouraged to attend.
Tully Potts
