Valley Cougars kick season off on Saturday

Valley Cougars RLFC kick off their 2016 Conference League South season this Saturday with a home match against London Chargers at Treharris RFC (kick-off 2.30pm).

The Cougars finished top of the table last season but were defeated by Nottingham Outlaws in the Grand Final and coach Dafydd Hellard says that his players can’t wait to get this year’s games underway.

“It’s been a good tough pre-season,” he said. “We’ve kept ourselves pretty quiet and just got on with our business behind closed doors. After a few of our boys earned the right to step up to South Wales Scorpions senior and under 20’s side, we’ve had to recruit new players.

“So far I’m happy with our progress and feel we are where we need to be at this point in the season. There’s a lot of unfinished business for this bunch of Cougars and that disappointment from last year’s Grand Final is driving us forward.

“I’ve been speaking to a few of the Nottingham players over Twitter throughout pre-season and I know how hard they’ve been working, I must say I wasn’t surprised by the result of the Torfaen game but the big score-line they won by in the season opener a fortnight ago has surely sent out a clear message that Nottingham don’t want to give up that title easily this year.

“The three Welsh clubs have a good chance this year. The league has less teams competing but the quality within that has stepped up from last year. We open this year’s campaign against a very successful London Chargers outfit. I haven’t seen too much of them, however they played before us on Grand Final day to win the Harry Jepson Trophy last year and what I seen of them then they looked pretty decent. They have a strong middle unit with two decent Aussie half backs directing them.

“Fortunately for us we play our first Conference League South fixture at our home base in Treharris. Everyone in the village is excited to get league back at the Bull Ring and I’m sure as always we’ll have a great crowd supporting us on Saturday.”