"Good old Facebook" has helped the Cowra Magpies land a twin-coup ahead of the quickly building 2020 Group 10 season.
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Just when it appeared the Magpies would be starting the new season with an all local contingent it has been announced former St George Illawarra and Canterbury hooker Craig Garvey has signed on with the black and whites for the upcoming season, and he'll bring his younger brother with him too.
Grant Garvey, 23, is a former NSW under 20s rake and captained the Sydney Roosters to the 2016 Holden Cup title, an outfit that included current premiership-winning players Joseph Manu, Victor Radley and Nat Butcher.
I messaged him ... and he jumped at it.
- Cowra coach Steve Sutton on landing former NRL player Craig Garvey
Grant played with Newtown last season, featuring in the NSW Cup grand final with the Jets, while Craig signed with the Sydney Roosters for 2019, but didn't add to his tally of 23 NRL games.
Craig also played for the Blues under 20s side back in 2013 and at 26 lands at Cowra with his best football ahead of him.
While the Magpies are flush for hookers with Logan Harris and Jack Nobes on their books for 2020, coach Steve Sutton said the Garveys would likely fill a massive void the Magpies have in the halves after the departures of Claude Gordon, Joey Bugg and ex-Group 10 player of the year Jeremy Gordon, while 2020 addition Garry Reilly has opted to remain in Bathurst next season too.
Sutton said he'd not met Garvey before but noticed the livewire rake running around in an old NRL game on television and decided to reach out to him via Facebook messenger.
"You sit there and watch old footy games on Fox and wonder what some of these guys are doing," Sutton laughed.
"I messaged him two or three weeks ago and asked if he'd be interested in coming out to the bush, and one day captain-coaching, and he jumped at it.
"He basically said no worries, it's just a matter of working out the fine print and then he said 'you won't just get me, you'll get my brother too', so it's huge for us."
The pair will remain living in Sydney for the 2020 season but Sutton said the club would add into their schedule some Saturday training runs.
The experienced mentor said the addition of the brothers will improve the squad "in leaps and bounds".
"We've been training pretty hard, been putting in and all of the players knew we were going through a rebuild and there would be opportunity there for players to put their hands up ... and that will still be the case, but now there's a bit of quality around them as well," Sutton said.
Sutton said the club was also hopeful of landing an impact-front rower.
