MACQUARIE captain Jason Green watched on helplessly last week as his side let Rugby chase down 352 and was keen to make amends in their last match for 2012, a two-day game against CYMS starting on Saturday.
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The Blues and Cougars will meet at Lady Cutler 2 as part of a club day, where all grades will be played in the same complex with a Christmas party thrown in.
CYMS' win over Souths last week has pushed them ahead of Macquarie and into the Whitney Cup top three and Green, who missed the loss to Rugby through suspension, said it had developed into a big match for both teams.
"Things are a lot easier after Christmas if you're already in that top three and at the moment Colts and Rugby have two of those spots wrapped up," Green said.
"That leaves CYMS, Newtown and ourselves fighting for that last spot and if we lose to CYMS they skip that little bit further away from us.
"Last week was disappointing. You shouldn't lose when defending 350 but I wasn't out there so I let the team down a bit there myself.
"I watched though and I thought Rugby batted well. We dropped 'Kemmo' (Michael Kempston) on about 10 and he set them up.
"Our bowling was a bit off. Dan Medway would set a field on one side of the wicket and the bowling would go the other way.
"We need to work on that because CYMS have a few handy batsmen and if we bowl like that again they will take advantage of it."
Former Indian under-19s representative Jaspal Bansal has been on fire this season, already scoring 453 runs at an average of 56.63.
Green said Macquarie will try and target Bansal in an attempt to weaken CYMS batting, which he believes is their strength.
"Hopefully we will be batting on day one but if we're not we have to nail Jaspal early," Green said.
"He's a great bloke and a great batsman. These lower, slower wickets are probably suiting him and going down to Lady Cutler where the outfields have been lightning might suit him even more.
"If we can get him out before he gets going that will definitely make things easier for us. They have a lot of guys that can chip in around him with Adam Wells, Ben Strachan and Dave McAlister but Jaspal's the one that has been flying so far this season."
Blues quick Declan Hoare is expected to play despite suffering a leg injury last week while all-rounder Ben Page will play purely as a batsman as he battles a back strain.
