ORANGE CYMS may have been well-beaten by one of the strongest sides in this year’s Bundaberg Cup in their trial game on Saturday, but the club’s future still looks bright.

Predominantly reserve grade and under 18s players took to the field for the Orange side at Waratah Sportsground against the Campbelltown Eagles on the weekend.

And it is for this reason CYMS president Ray Agland believes the club is in good stead for this year’s Group 10 season.

“The game was pretty much a reserve grade trial. There are a lot of voids in the first grade side at the moment and (captain-coach) Mick Sullivan wanted to see what he could pick up from the game,” Agland said.

“Mick was really happy. Apart from a good first grade this season it looks as though we will have a really strong reserve grade and under 18s this year.

“It looks pretty bright for the future.”

Sam Hill, Luke Symons, Bryce Jones and Sandon Gibbs-O’Neil are the under 18s brigade expected to make the transition into the first grade ranks for the upcoming season and they will complement the plethora of new signings made by the green and golds in the off-season.

Of those new signings, only Ben McAlpine and Garrett Field took any part in the trial game on Saturday and Agland believes this will continue throughout the pre-season.

“Mick won’t be back until the start of the season proper and (fullback) Tim Bassmann is in the same boat,” he said.

“A couple of the others like TC (Terawhiti Cooper) and Nathan Green will play different parts of the Bathurst Knockout and the Western Challenge, but Mick is treating most of the pre-season as a trial.

“We probably won’t have a full-strength side until round one.”

In the under 16s curtain-raiser CYMS were far too impressive for the Parkes Spaceman.

“They gave Parkes a bit of a touch-up,” Agland said.