RUGBY LEAGUE
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St Pat's have pulled off a pre-season Group 10 premier league coup after announcing the signing of 2014 premiership winners Cyp and Antonio Ale.
The siblings, along with their brother Paletime, were part of the team which defeated Cowra on their home soil to take home the trophy two seasons ago before all three linked with Lithgow Workies last year and made another grand final.
Having playmaker Antonio and three-quarter or back-rower Cyp back in his squad gives Saints coach Kurt Hancock some much-needed depth after a testing 2015 season where his troops were spread thin at times.
“We officially sorted it all out yesterday [Wednesday]. Both the boys were outstanding for us in our premiership year, but unfortunately we couldn’t match Lithgow’s offer when it came time to try and re-sign them,” the coach said.
“Antonio got a bit of a suspension out of the grand final last year so we’ll be without him for the pre-season knock-out and the first three rounds of the competition proper but we’ll make provisions for that.
“I believe Cyp played out of position last season with Lithgow there on the wing. I think he’s a very good centre or back-rower and we’ll look to get him back into one of those spots.
“I think if he didn’t get sin binned in the grand final against Cowra a couple of years ago he would have gone very close to pipping Benjamin John for the man of the match award.”
With Tim Holman no longer a part of the squad, the attacking focus of the side looked to be entirely dependant on hooker John and half Garry Reilly, but having Antonio Ale return will ease that pressure.
Hancock knows now that his team will have some more scope for scoring points, and wants to build on some of the things they did in the second half of last season, a campaign that saw them make the semi-finals without really threatening to defend their title.
They were knocked out by the Blayney Bears.
“After we got about half-way through the season we started to play some okay football and changed the way we were playing,” Hancock said.
“We had a plan A and a plan B, but probably had to resort to that plan B a bit earlier than we would have liked, but by the back end of the season it was starting to pay off.
“This will boost us a lot, and it was nice that the Ale boys actually approached us, too. They wanted to come back and that is always a good sign.”