Much of the hype surrounding this year’s Rumson-Fair Haven football team includes visions of defending their Patriot Division championship of a year ago.
But if you ask Shane Fallon, the Rumson Fair Haven head coach, what’s on his mind, the only thing at this point, is the season opener against Asbury Park.
“Right now all of our focus is on Asbury,” said Fallon. “They have a lot of returners and a new coaching staff. I expect it to be a battle.”
Although the team comes into the season as the division’s team to beat in a lot of peoples’ eyes, with a touted week three match-up against division foe Keansburg being called the “make or break game of the season”, Fallon knows the team must stay on track if the week three match-up is to have any significance.
“The biggest thing our coaching staff is concentrating on is the task at hand,” said the coach.
And right now the task at hand is finding a way to overcome the loss of 19 seniors from last year’s 7-3 (6-0 in the division) championship team.
While the Bulldogs return many of their talented offensive players, they have lost much of a defense that was the strength of the team in most of its wins a year ago.
Returning on the offense side of the ball are superb players like senior quarterback Matt Wassel, senior wideout Ryan Kirchner, senior wideout John Lembeck, and senior tailback Ryan Korn, who played through a torn hamstring through much of last year, and promises to be a different player this time around. Lembeck was also hampered with mononucleosis through much of last year, and should help take some of the focus of Kirchner this season.
The Bulldogs will also benefit greatly on offense with the return of three experienced offensive linemen – senior left tackle Ted Mimnaugh, senior left guard Brian Biga and senior right tackle Chris LaCosta – with a number of players battling for the other spots on the line.
Among the other players who should help give Rumson one of the better offenses in the division are senior tight end Jack Sharkey, senior fullback Sean Mac- Donald, and junior wide receiver Justin Hook, a 6-5 basketball player who is just beginning to bloom as a football player.
Defensively the team will rely heavily on returning defensive tackles Kevin Britton and Taylor Brown, while two key new starters for the defense will be seniors Sean Conley and Ty Robinson.
“We lack some experience on defense, but we are really making up for it in the offseason,” said coach Fallon. “The D has really surprised the coaching staff, they are much further along than we had expected them to be.”
The linebackers for the Bulldogs are led by returning starters Matt Feiring and Colin Callahan, both seniors. The secondary is entirely new, with Josh Brister and Senior Dan O’Connor at the corners, and senior Tom Rehders and junior Charlie O’Brien at the safeties, though Kirchner could also see some time in the defensive backfield.
With so many young players on the field, the RFH coaching staff has relied heavily on its four senior co-captains, Wassel, Feiring, Mimnaugh and Kirchner.
“These guys have the team in the right frame of mind,” said Fallon. “We’re getting great leadership out of these guys, it’s like having four extra coaches on the field.”
Though they are being billed as one of the teams to beat in the Patriot Division, much of the Bulldogs’ success will rely on the maturation and development of a young defense. However, with what promises to be an explosive offense, this RFH team certainly has the potential to make another run at both the division and what is always an elusive state playoff berth.
“With the division championship we want to build on this momentum,” said Fallon. “But we are pushing on the team, just because we won the division (last year) doesn’t necessarily mean that is where we start (this year).”