The biggest turnover of players in the past 20 years will be evident at Dubbo CYMS when the Fishies start their 2010 season with a Western Challenge match against Bathurst St Pats at Apex Oval today.
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Only five of last year’s premiership winning squad - Blake Tremain-Cannon, Kane Ashby, Nic Wilson, Luke Jenkins and Darren Toomey - will play today.
The list of ‘superannuates’ includes Shawn Townsend, Justin Yeo, Josh Large, Tim Ryan, Simon Yeo and Mick Darcy - while Steve Madden has moved to live at Maitland, Lionel O’Mally is playing with Canterbury Bulldogs, Max Ray (St George) and Ryan Marlin to Melbourne Storm.
The other major announcement is that Tremain-Cannon will be captain-coach in his own right after it was announced earlier that Townsend would be involved with the coaching.
For today’s game, the second row will see a new look with the signing of Jarrod Ritchie from Wagga alongside Mitch Griffiths - a former CYMS junior who hasn’t played for a couple of years.
Wellington’s Alex Frail has returned to the club and Trent Carroll, another Cowboy, has been named on the interchange bench.
Chris Williams will play half-back today alongside Brenton Bird with Ashby and Tom Besgrove in the centres. Shawn Townsend is on the bench ‘to help out.’
Despite the wholesale changes Tremain-Cannon remains positive buoyed by the attitude of the players at training.
“With so many new players it probably hasn’t been the best preparation ahead of this weekend,” he said.
“The young guys have been really enthusiastic but our attendance hasn’t been as good with a lot of guys away or just busy, so we will be a little under-done.
“As would be expected I’m hopeful that a few of the older guys will shelve their retirement plans to help out later in the season.”
While winning is a major priority it will not be everything for CYMS at this stage with the coach viewing the game as a good opportunity to try out some of their new combinations ahead of the business end of the competition.
“I’ll be more concerned about the effort we put in rather than the result,” he said.
“Although in saying that you always go out there wanting to win.
“But it will be a huge test for us. It will give us the chance to look at our guys in certain positions and get a general feel of the team in order to lead us forward into the competition.
“Our depth is better than it has been for a while with a lot of guys deciding to come back or come over from union.
“We always have a lot of strength in our juniors and I’d say a couple of them will come through to first grade this season.”
The three week pre-season competition sees CYMS placed in Pool B of Division 1 with Forbes, Lithgow Workies and St Pats. The Fishies will play against St Pats and Workies in Lithgow next weekend.
“From what I’ve heard the St Pats line-up should be pretty good,” Tremain-Cannon said.
“They’ve had a couple of trial games and are probably better prepared than ourselves.”
CYMS 1st grade: 1 Blake Tremain-Cannon, 2 Ben Bruce, 3 Kane Ashby, 4 Tom Besgrove, 5 Nick Evans, 6 Brenton Bird, 7 Chris Williams, 8 Nic Wilson, 9 Luke Jenkins, 10 Darren Toomey, 11 Mitch Griffiths, 12 Jarrod Ritchie , 13 Alex Frail. Interchange: 14 Trent Carroll, 15 Clint Large, 16 Rhys Large.
