New season is not far away now
New season ahead
By Rogero
January 16 2016
The new season at Caerphilly is fast approaching, with the squad numbers having been announced by the club and pre-season fixtures on the horizon.
The club have two friendlies against league opposition coming up ahead of the new season. Both games will take place at Virginia Park. The games are on Saturday afternoons with 3pm kick offs - 6th February v Gloucester All Golds; and 13th February v Hemel Stags.
The season gets underway with a Cup fixture away at London Skolars before the league campaign starts with home match against Keighley Cougars on Sunday 6th March.
The club have released the squad numbers for the coming season, and the list is shown below:
FIRST TEAM SQUAD
1 Chris Leyshon - Signed from Aberavon Wizards Rugby Union (RU)
2 Ian Newbury
3 Kyle Scrivens
4 Yannic Parker - Signed from Gloucestershire All Golds Rugby League (RL)
5 Dai Evans - Signed from Bridgend Ravens RL
6 Kristian Hawkes - Signed from Swindon RU
7 Paul Emanuelli
8 Chris Davies - Signed from Merthyr RU
9 Connor Farrer
10 Izaak Duffy - Signed from Gloucestershire All Golds RL
11 Bradley Hill
12 Tom Morgan - Signed from Bristol RU
13 Chris Vitalini - Signed from Gloucestershire All Golds RL
14 Osian Phillips
15 Jordan Sheridan
16 Dafydd Hellard
17 Mike Connor
18 Matty Wilcox - Signed from Cardiff City RL
19 Kristian Baller - Signed from Pontypool RU
20 Anthony Symons
21 Scott Gregory - Signed from Valley Cougars RL
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As a double season ticket holder I look forward to seeing the first X111 in action when the league season starts.
The two friendlies should provide everyone with a good picture of where we are, but pre season friendlies are only warm up matches and in all sports they are no indication of the real thing.
Rogero
The bookies have us bottom of the odds pile at 150/1 (best odds) and I think they are justified as we have not really strengthened any great deal on what we had last season in my view. Whether we can use that as a motivating factor remains to be seen.
The full odds (best odds available taken from oddschecker) are as follows -
Keighley - 7/2
Toulouse - 9/2
Doncaster - 11/2
Hunslet - 6/1
Barrow - 8/1
York - 9/1
Rochdale - 14/1
North Wales - 16/1
Newcastle - 20/1
All Golds - 40/1
Hemel - 66/1
Coventry - 100/1
Skolars - 100/1
Oxford - 100/1
Scorpions -150/1
I'd love this to be the season we kick on and go up the league but the all Welsh route hasn't worked in the past and I can't see it working now.
We have needed experienced players in key positions to compliment the young but naive enthusiasm and we still need it now in my opinion.
Onto the odds - it is rare for bookies to get things wrong, I hope they have this time because the club needs to make a competitive start to life in Caerphilly.
I may put a couple of quid on us winning the title at those odds.
Rogero