SOUTHERN INLAND RUGBY UNION
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CSU will get a first indication of how their pre-season preparations are going in a Rugby Tens curtain-raiser at Albury next Saturday.
The Reddies will line-up in the precursor to the Super 15 trial between NSW Waratahs and Melbourne Rebels at the Albury Showground.
Six teams are entered the Rugby Tens tournament - Ag College, Griffith, Box Hill, Albury Steamers and Group Nine premiers Albury Thunder.
Each team will play three matches from 1.50pm with the top teams from both pools playing off in the final.
Reddies coach Mick Wakeling said the team was keen to be involved in the big day and would be suited to the fast-paced action.
"I think it suits our team reasonably well cause it gives us some space for some of the quicker guys," Wakeling said.
"At the end of the day most of the guys were going to go down, watch the Super 15 trial game anyway so it's just a matter of going down earlier and have a run around in that."
After the heartbreak of falling one point short of a grand final appearance, losing to Waratahs 30-29 in the preliminary final, Wakeling believes the club is set for another strong season.
There is still some uncertainty over the team waiting for uni to return to finalise the recruiting progress.
CSU started pre-season training three weeks ago and had have strong numbers with 33 at Thursday with more expected when uni returns next month.
"That's pretty good for us given uni isn't back yet and quite a lot of our players come back when uni comes back," Wakeling said.
"A lot of the existing guys were know are coming back, but it is the first year uni students that we hopefully can recruit and make a big difference to us."
Uncertain of the strength of the competition, Wakeling speculated the Albury and Wagga City could be hurt by losses and Temora could be the dark horse of the competition following their first division premiership last season.
The side is realtively unchanged from last year Flanker Pat Hunter and hooker Michael Barnes are the only confirmed losses for CSU.
"They are the two of first graders that we knew we would be without and hopefully we can have those covered reasonably well," Wakeling said. "Other than that the backline is unchanged and our reserve grade was pretty handy last year and we have a few guys that can step up to replace those two."
Number eight Stirling Ross currently playing in Hong Kong is still expected to return just before the season starts on April 5.