Jack Rutledge has been named vice-captain of Enniskillen Skins for the upcoming season as he and his teammates return to action at the weekend.

The 24-year-old believes the start of the campaign has come around at the right time after pre-season wins over Dundee and Dublin side Suttonians.

“Really looking for to it,” said Rutledge, looking ahead to their home clash against Lurgan in the Junior Cup.

“It’s a great opportunity to build on last year’s performance and push ourselves even further.

"The squad has grown even more this season in terms of numbers and quality. I’m excited to see what we can achieve this year. Training has been really enjoyable as well as being very tough.

"Our strength and conditioning coach Ryan has put a lot of work into making sure we are conditioned to play a fast style of rugby, both in attack and defence. We have won both are pre-season games so far and played quite well.

"However, that is only pre-season and we will get more of an idea of where we are when we play competitive league and cup games.”

Head coach Alastair Keys has named Rutledge as his new vice-captain, alongside new captain James Ferguson.

The towering figure of Rutledge made his debut back in 2018 and says he’s pleased to be given more responsibility heading into this year.

“Yeah really pleased,” he added. “To be named VC is a huge privilege. I’ve been around the club since I left school, so it means a lot. I’ve learned a lot from other players over the last few years and I aim to bring these learnings into the role.”

When asked about setting goals prior to the season, Rutledge commented: “Throughout the pre-season, we have talked about taking it one game at a time.

"Alistair is a big believer in focusing on performance and the scoreboard will take care of itself.”

Enniskillen narrowly missed out on a league title last term as Ballyclare just pipped them to top spot, but Enniskillen are hoping to use that as motivation. “It was very difficult,” the second/back row continued.

“We know that we had opportunities to win the league and being so close makes it harder to get over.

"However, we took a massive leap last year in terms of results and performances. We hopefully can give another good account of ourselves and challenge for the league again.”

Despite missing out on the league, Skins did taste success as they lifted the Towns Cup after a 38-22 victory over Ballymena II at the Kingspan Stadium in April. “We took great strides last year as a team.

"We missed out on the league, but winning the Towns Cup was a great reward for the effort the lads had put in," he concluded.

"This year we are focusing on building a big squad so that players can seamlessly fit into whatever team they play for on a Saturday. We are also looking at being as accurate as we possibly can, both in training and matches.”