Scelly has been named as the Western Zone coach for the inaugural New Era Midwest Cup All Stars match, which will be played at Carrington Park on August 4.

His Western Zone outfit draws on the best players from New Era clubs CSU, Orange and Portland, while the Eastern Zone team they will face off against consists of talents from Blackheath, Lithgow and Kandos.

“The concept is something of a throwback to the mid 1990s where 16 clubs competed in the Midwest premiership split into eastern and western zones, with a coming together of the clubs within the two zones later in the season,” New Era publicity officer John Fitzgerald said.

The new concept is one which Scelly, who is in his third year coaching the Mungoes, knows will present him with a challenge. However, it is also one which excites him.

“For me it’s a good challenge, I don’t know too many of the Orange and Portland boys, so it will be good to get into to training and learn from them,” he said.

“It’s good to get something new in there, it’s the best versus the best, so it’s pretty exciting. It’s a good way to finish the year as well, because our season has been shortened a little bit this year … we’ve only got 10 rounds.”

CSU had seven players named in the Western All Stars squad; Billy Dickinson, Brad Rushby, Oscar Thorburn, Sam Groom, Izaac Scott, Josh Byron and Todd Pattison.

Scelly is delighted that they will get the chance to test themselves on the representative scene – as will the leading league tag talents – but he also wants to see the concept evolve to increase opportunities for New Era Cup players at an even higher level.

“Hopefully this can be a bit of a pathway for us to have our own players selected in more representative teams. It is exciting and I hope it stays around, maybe we do something like players from the New Era Cup can verse Woodbridge Cup at the end of every year or Castlereagh Cup,” Scelly suggested.

“It would be awesome if we could push for something like that. We’ve got some pretty talented players in this competition.”