South Wales RLFC are holding an open trial for players for their first season on Sunday 10th January at 1pm at the University in Glamorgan playing fields in Trefforest.
The newly formed club, who will play their home matches out of Neath RFC, open their inaugural Co-operative Championship 1 campaign with a home game against former Super League club, Workington Town, at The Gnoll on Sunday 28 February (kick-off 2pm).
Players need to apply by filling in an form. These will be online by the end of this week at www.cymrurl.com and on the new South Wales RLFC website that will go live next week.
"The open trial is for League or union players to come along,” said South Wales director Mark Rowley. “The player base is fantastic here in South Wales. We know that we'll be able to use players who were in the Crusaders reserve team last season but there is still a lot of untapped talent out there.
"We'll be a 99 percent Welsh club which will be good for our identity. We won't be importing any players at all from Australia or New Zealand. We want Welsh players to go on and play Super League.
"Moving from the Conference to the Super League is too big a step. They need this middle ground in order to go on and play Super League and then for Wales. As a nation, we’re building towards qualification for the 2011 Four Nations and 2013 World Cup and this club is an important stepping stone in player development."
"We are hoping to develop links where players can travel back and forth. We’ll be more than a feeder side as players will be able to travel both ways. If the Welsh youngsters are not being used by the Crusaders, hopefully we can get them back.
"We’re hoping to be good enough to gain promotion to the Championship within two years and in six years time, we want to be able to compete for a Super League licence. I'm confident that we have the structure here to enable that to happen.”
