Steve Rule - Macclesfield
After taking Macclesfield to Promotion in his first season as Head Coach last season Steve Rule has watched them pick up five wins in their first ever season of National League rugby to lie in 8th place on points difference but with the same number of points as the fifth placed side.
This season his assistant coach is the experienced back row man Dave Muckalt who has good pedigree having played at the top end of the National Leagues.
They started the month with a narrow two point defeat at Preston but then put together a three match winning run with wins at home to Kendal and Blaydon and in between an excellent away success at Tynedale.
Steve who was a stand off and played for Sale amongst a number of clubs has been part of the successful Cheshire coaching set up for the last three years taking the County to a final and a semi final in his time there. He has also had a coaching spell at New Brighton.
Robert Afoa Peterson – Halifax
No 8 Robert joined the club at the start of the season and has made an immediate impact and has started and finished all 10 of Halifax’s league matches this season.
In the process has scored eight tries including a hat trick against Liverpool St Helens as they staged a second half comeback to recover from a 10 point deficit.
Mike Scott – Fylde
Mike Scott turned in some impressive kicking displays in November and ended the moth with a highly impressive kicking success rate of 81.48 to take the kicker of the month award from the NCA.
At the start of the month he was averaging 79.55 but with 22 successful kicks he saw his average rise by just under 2% to take the award.
Scott joined Fylde in the summer after a three year spell at Kendal having previously played his senior rugby at Aspatria and Orrell.
The highlight of his career to date was selection for the English Counties squad which toured Chile in the summer of 2002. He said at the time "The tour is a wonderful idea because it gives people a chance to go to places they would never have dreamt of. I love Cumbrian rugby and I hope that seeing me being selected for this tour will give people more of an incentive to play county rugby."
1st Team Manager Steve Rigby said "We are very pleased that Mike has joined the Club. He is a highly experienced playmaker, a very reliable goal kicker and can play in more than one back position."