Owen busy rebuilding Old Reds for shot at promotion

NEW Old Redcliffians director of rugby Craig Owen is grateful to have time on his side as he bids to take the club back into the National Leagues at the first attempt.

Relegated under the RFU’s formula to decide promotion and relegation for the Championship and below, the Bristol-based club have seen a changing of the guard over the summer with long-serving full-back Owen taking the reins from Kevin Coster.

As life in the South West Premier beckons, Owen is getting to grips with shaping a team to perform in a tightly-contested league which saw eight of its 13 sides record more losses than wins last season. Owen told The Rugby

Paper: “Relegation for us has been disappointing, but truly speaking it will work out for the best because it can give us a year to put steps in place to become more sustainable and in a better place to go back up to National Two.

“I see it as a blessing in disguise and fully expect us to be fighting it out at the top-end of South West Premier. We have recruited well with 17 new players coming in. We did lose a few players as well, around six have left.

“Anything below challenging at the top will be a failure, at least on my part.”

The sense of duty isn’t lost on Owen in his new role at his boyhood club, but that won’t stop him turning out in the red and black on game day.

“I played for the club since I was 11, I’m now 35,” Owen added.

“We’re making it as smooth a transition as possible for the boys as I’m still training with them. I may still play for the Vets team every now and again because we plan to have our Vets curtain-raising the first team games.

“The change has come at a good time, from top to bottom, and it’ll be a good thing for the club.

“There is loads to do so it’s good that we’ve got a bit of a wait in order to get things in shape for the new season.

“We have a whole new set-up throughout the club in terms of coaches; our first team have two coaches, our second team now have two coaches and two team managers. And we have installed a development officer to help the Juniors progress through.”