HE'S an imposing figure and Corrimal will need a literally huge performance from new recruit Liam Scott to be any chance of toppling Thirroul on Saturday.
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The battle of the beaches at Gibson Park will be a belated first outing for the Englishman, who initially joined Corrimal ahead of last season before the Illawarra first grade competition was abandoned amid the COVID pandemic.
He subsequently linked with Shellharbour in Group Seven, emerging as one of the comp's premier front-rowers, but he always planned to play under Cougars coach Sean Maloney who initially drew the Newcastle lad to Australia.
"I playing in League 1 back home and I had a mate sign with Corrimal and he said 'let's go over and have a go'," Scott said.
"I ended up coming over we had a big preseason and unfortunately the season got canned. I went down [to Group Seven], it's a good tough comp and the boys like to get into you with a bit of rough stuff. That's what I love and what I came into the game for.
"Before I got that transfer [from Corrimal] I said to Sean I'd come back and give it another go this year if the season went ahead. When I signed with Shellharbour I spoke to Abe [Atallah] and discussed that and it was always something that was going to happen this year."
Taking on a Thirroul pack stacked with NRL experience in the shape of Tim Grant, Josh Starling and Frank Winsterstein is hardly dipping a toe in the water but it's the challenge that brought him over from the UK.
"We've spoken about it a little bit this week, we've touched on it, we haven't really made a big deal out of it," Scott said.
"We're just going to play what's in front of us. If they run it they run it, if we put them on their back, we'll go again. I came here to show what I'm about so I'm just going to front up and run it hard.
"It's our first game for the season and our first real game as a team to see where we're at. Seany's recruited well and we've got a good forward pack this year. We'll just look to lay the foundations and let the backs do the try-scoring."
Maloney's endured some rotten luck on the injury front but will add Scott to a roster bolstered by spine players Tom Maloney and livewire fullback Tom Garrido on the comeback trail from serious injuries.
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He says it will certainly be a build through the season but he's confident the Cougars will put a competitive side on the park in 2021.
"Tom's got his confidence back, he's had a few knocks on that leg and it's done his confidence a world of good, and Thomas Garrido's the same," Maloney said.
"He's a little bit down on pace but in the next few weeks he'll be back up there and he's looking really sharp. We've brought in Liam Scott and he wants an opportunity in Australia.
"He's a worker and he's an 80-minute man. He's got the fitness and agility and he brings that bit of professionalism to the club and I'm really looking forward to him bringing some toughness to our pack.
"We've lost a few quality guys which is disappointing but we've shopped around and recruited pretty well. If we can stay injury free I'm really happy with the top 1-20 guys we've got."
In Saturday's other fixture Collegians will look to keep momentum going against Dapto at the Showground after getting their campaign off to an impressive winning start against Wests last week.
It was a strong return after the club sat out 2020, though coach Nathan Fien labeled it a "mixed bag" despite holding on for 24-22 victory.
"We've got a lot of familiar faces but we like to think our best footy's still in front of us," Fien said.
"We haven't played trial footy, we didn't play footy at all last year. We showed in patches what we can do but we've got to put together an 80-minute performance. That's just going to take time together.
"We'll go back and work on some things we need to look at. We probably need to focus on ourselves at the moment because there's some things we need to fix. We've just got to knuckle down and bring it this week against Dapto."