ROSEWOOD Roosters captain James Harlow believes it’s only a matter of time before his hard-working rugby league team is rewarded.
After more than 20 dedicated players asked for extra pre-season training, the Roosters threatened to secure a first C-Grade competition win playing at home.
However, the Fassifern Bombers denied the Roosters an Anzac Park celebration by coming from 12-10 down to win 20-12.
“We had a few close calls,” Harlow said.
“Part of it is our discipline and also having young kids that haven’t played much senior footy.
“There’s some inexperience that we’ve got in the backs and in the forwards.”
Harlow, who led from the front as a prop, urged his teammates to stick together after also losing their first match 34-8 to Swifts.
“We’ve got 28 boys rostered and we’re starting to rotate them around, seeing where they go, seeing where they fit,” he said.
“We’ll go from there.”
In an expanded 10-team C-Grade competition, the Roosters will need to be patient and remain mindful that building momentum is the main goal.
“Some of these teams we play twice and there’s two or three we don’t,” Harlow said, eager for his players to keep learning.
He said his team’s communication and teamwork had improved dramatically in just two weeks.
“It was unbelievable in what the boys have done,” the captain said.
Harlow has taken on the captaincy having been a Roosters junior, before a stint with Swifts and Mustangs Colts in the Toowoomba competition.
He was encouraged by his team’s pre-season commitment under new coach Scott McTaggart.
“Rosewood in the last few years have always had one good training session and the rest have been terrible,” Harlow said.
“He [McTaggart] came at the start of pre-season and went ‘we’ll only do the one’ but we started on two and we had 20-30 boys. At one point, we were up to 38.”
The Rosewood try scorers in their first 2023 premiership game at Anzac Park were hooker Cody Adams and five-eighth Ryan Clarke.
“It’s always good to play at home … with the crowd behind us,” Harlow said.
The Roosters tackle Brisbane Valley at the Laidley Recreation Ground in their next match on May 6.
The Roosters’ next home game is against the Springfield Panthers on May 13.
