St Pat’s are desperate to put a dismal 2011, that saw them finish with the wooden spoon, behind them and already have their plans for the upcoming season underway by poaching Jeremy Gordon and Andrew Mendes from rivals, Bathurst Panthers.

The club will lose no-nonsense prop Wade Judd, who has elected to take over the coaching role with the Oberon Tigers. The Tigers will re-enter Group 10 premier league for the first time since the 2007 season when the competition gets underway in April.

Season 2012 will be the first time that Armstrong has guided St Pat’s. The centre tore an anterior cruciate ligament in one of the last games of the 2011 season and the injury has ruled him out of playing this year.

As a result, he decided to step into the vacant coaching role and he will get his first real look at the side when training resumes on February 2.

“We have picked up Jeremy Gordon and Andrew Mendes from Panthers and they will add a bit of speed to backs. We lose Wade, obviously, but just about everyone else from last year has signed up again and we have a couple of old players coming back,” he said.

For the past two seasons the Skilled Challenge, a pre-season competition between Group 10 and Group 11 teams, has been an important part of preparations for the shortened season.

However, in 2012, the inclusion of Oberon and a revision of the draw means it will be at least 17 rounds instead of the 14 that were played last season and Armstrong is happy to not have a big commitment in the pre-season.

“The season is longer so it’s probably better that we don’t have the Skilled Challenge. We had that competition at a time when it was good to get more games under the belt ahead of the season,” the coach said.

“We have the [Bathurst Panthers] knockout to play as well as heading to Kiama for the nines and we could organise a couple of other trials as well.”

The challenge for Armstrong and the club is organise trials that can fit in between the knockout and the beginning of the Group 10 season to maximise fitness.

“There is a bit of a gap between the knockout and the start of the season but it is probably a bit early. The knockout is in mid-March and the competition starts at the end of April. There’s a bit of a gap in between and it’s not that easy to organise trials between the two because a lot of competitions start earlier than Group 10,” Armstrong said.

“Ideally it would be good to get a couple of games in. Last year we played a charity match against Panthers and if that goes ahead again that would be one less match to organise.”