Woodward puts LSH through their paces

Aug 17 2007 by Ian Hargraves, Liverpool Daily Post

LIVERPOOL St Helens, who will be celebrating their anniversary as one of the world’s oldest rugby union clubs later this autumn, have been deprived of a very useful friendly game tomorrow (Sat).

After training extremely hard to ensure no wastage of promotion, they were due to play Stoke, but the latter have pulled out because several of their players want to snatch a few days abroad in the sunshine.

However, the LSH men will still take part in another training session, to get them ready for their first serious match, a cup tie against newly-promoted Leigh, at Tyldesley on the Bank Holiday Monday, August 27.

Coach Paul Woodward thinks it could be quite a tough encounter, but he is happy to know that his champion side of last season have managed to acquire several very useful reinforcements.

Fly-half Ashley Worsfold, a 22-year-old star from Tyldesley, has rewarded Woodward for all his past coaching by joining LSH, and Woodward is confident he will make a big impact as a talented rival to Simon Worsley, the man in possession.

Ben Moseley, voted player of the year at Ruskin Park, has also arrived to create competition in the centre, while Geoff Foulkes, son of a very distinguished Liverpool player, who started playing at LSH in his teens, has returned to add competition in the back-row.

Brian Mahaga, a talented back who can play almost anywhere beyind the scrum, has arrived from once mighty Orrell, who have also provided them with an extra hooker in Ben Griffin.

“Things are looking most encouraging,” Woodward said with a great deal of pleasure.

“Just what we want for a season which will see us celebrate our 150th anniversary and recall those days when we fielded the captains for England, Scotland and Ireland.”

Meanwhile, Waterloo will be taking a group of 23 players to Denbigh tomorrow (Sat) for a friendly match against a North Wales Select XV, with reserve coach Joe Lyddon in charge.

The club are still looking for two or three more players to give them greater strength in depth, but are starting to feel they have quite a good side, though they face an extremely rough early test against old rivals Otley in their first league match.