Jack Preece has a good feeling about the new season.

The head coach at Old Centralians believes the club have what it takes to make a concerted bid for the South West One East title in 2017/18.

He has been hugely encouraged by the acquisition of former Plymouth Albion, Gloucester Academy and Worcester Academy coach Simon Lane and believes that together they can guide the club back into what is now South West Premier.

“We’ve got such a good chance,” said Preece. “The club wants promotion and if we can get them all playing and with the right attitude then we’re a good enough team.”

Injuries and unavailabilities hampered the club last season after relegation the previous campaign and although they finished fourth, they were well adrift of the top three.

“Obviously you can’t do much about injuries,” said Preece, “but players being unavailable was a problem. Why aren’t they playing?

“When we played Old Patesians away we had 36 players unavailable. But we beat them at home and Newbury and Witney as well.”

Preece is encouraged by the number of youngsters breaking through at the club.

“We’ve got a number of 17 and 18-year-olds who are coming into men’s rugby and they are giving us strength in depth,” he said.

Preece will work closely with backs coach Lane. His playing commitments with National One club Coventry – he is a professional player – mean Lane will be in charge of Cents on Saturday afternoons.

Preece will take training sessions on a Monday and they will both be at training on Wednesdays.

The openside flanker, just 28, left Birmingham Moseley at the end of last season and is looking forward to playing alongside the likes of ex-Gloucester and England player Luke Narraway, former All Black Sam Tuitupou and one-time Scotland player Alex Grove this season.

Preece hopes he has another “five or six years” as a player but the one-time Rotherham star is already making plans for when he hangs up his boots.

“I’d love to get into coaching full-time,” he said. “I know it’s not easy because so many other people do as well but I’ve been coaching since I was 18 and there aren’t many people who have coached for 10 years by the time they are 28.

“Hopefully I should have a pretty good coaching CV when I finish playing.”

Most of Preece’s time as a coach has been with Old Cents, although he has also had spells coaching Hucclecote, Sheffield University and Driffield.

He was at Rotherham for three seasons from 2013 but since returning to coach Old Cents has been pleased to see a familiar face turn up to pre-season training.

“My dad Steve has just done his 36th pre-season with Old Cents,” he chuckled. “He’s 55 now and doesn’t play any more but he loves pre-season training.

“He played for the club for years and years. He was a hooker or an openside and he used to play alongside his brothers Rob and Tim.

“In those days, the ambition was always to play for your local club.”