Saints coach will learn lessons

RUGBY:  

MICK Fogerty admits his first season in charge of Oldham St Anne’s was an “eye-opener” — but the experience hasn’t frightened him off.

The 34-year-old former Oldham RL player will again combine coach and player roles as Saints hope to push towards the upper echelons of National Conference League Division Two.

The Higginshaw Road outfit certainly had a topsy-turvy 2014. An encouraging start was followed by a decidedly shaky period when they lost seven games out of eight, before a decent finish put them in seventh place.

With his feet now firmly under the coaching table, Fogerty believes he is in a better position to carry the club forward: “I probably learned more last season than I have done in the last 10 years as a player.

“It was an eye-opener, off the field more than anything else. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I still am. I’m learning different things all the time, about people I’m used to playing alongside.”

Saints have made a couple of interesting additions, and both are well known to the coach.

Second row Ben Wood and forward Chris Clarke played alongside Fogerty in the red and white of the Roughyeds. The latter most recently donned an Oxford shirt in Kingstone Press Championship One, and has already made his mark.

Fogerty explained: “Chris is helping to coach the forwards, and they’ve really bought into what he says and does. “Both will be very good in the amateur game, I’ve no doubt about that, and they still have the potential and ambition to step back up to professional level.”