Newcastle Knights junior representative teams ramped up their preparations this weekend’s opening round with impressive wins over the Far West Academy on Saturday.
The Knights’ Under 15s recorded a comprehensive 12 tries to one victory over the Far West outfit, while 17s charged to a big 13 tries to nil triumph.
15s coach Laurie Clifton was pleased with his sides performance, nominating try scorers Harrison Wall, Bayley Richie and Jayden Grainger as standouts.
"Our skill areas were a little bit better than the Far West side," Clifton says.
"They don’t train has much as we do and they only get together once a month.
"So obviously with our program compared to their program, we were better skilled, stronger and quicker.
"But that’s to be expected.
"Some of these Far West kids are travelling eight hours to training and back home again, but they tried hard and showed some good skills as well."
While Clifton was rapt with the final scoreline, he was particularly happy with the fact his team followed the prepared game plan.
"The most important thing that came out of it was that we did a video session on the Tuesday night and they listened and then performed," he says.
"All I asked them to do was go out and play to what we’d shown them on the video with correction of structure.
"They went out and did that really, really well and put that into practice in an actual game situation."
The Club's junior representative teams will now have a week of training to prepare for the opening round of the season this Saturday at Cessnock Sports Ground.
The 15s and 17s play Greater Northern at 1pm and 2.30pm, while the Harold Matthews and SG Ball take on Wests Magpies at 4pm and 5.30pm respectively.
