St George Illawarra Dragons hooker hopeful Mitch Rein is eager to take to the field to begin the Red-and-Whites 2014 campaign and is excited for what is to come from the new look side.
The Kiama Knights junior is positive about the extra experience former Super League player, Michael Witt, and ex-Melbourne Storm, Gareth Widdop, bring to the Red V.
The 23-year-old is hoping to cement his place as hooker after Cameron King moved on at the end of the 2013 season but may have some competition in the form of young gun Craig Garvey.
“Preseason has been quite tough, but an enjoyable change from the past few years and there are a lot of new faces, it has been good,” said Rein.
“All of the new recruits have been really impressive and the games we’ve had against ourselves and Warrington have been full on and shown who’s doing well and everything is coming together.
“Gareth Widdop and Michael Witt are bringing a lot of experience to the side, Gareth is still young but coming from Melbourne he has a lot of experience from playing with the Storm so he has been pointing us in the right direction.
“I just want a good start to the season and play consistently; I’m happy with the way I’m going at training so hopefully I’ll be able to hold that hooker position but we’ll never know until we start playing.
“It’s always hard around this time of year because the beginning of the season is so close and we have long training sessions in the heat, but everyone is looking forward to getting out there and start playing.”