IN today's edition of the Daily Liberal's mid-season report card we take a look at the progress made by Macquarie, a team many people predicted would struggle during 2014-15.
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The Blues were runners-up in last season's Whitney Cup but during the off-season they were ravaged by player departures with the likes of James O'Brien, Steve Knight, Dan Medway and Jacob Harvey all opting not to play this season.
This led to many tipping the Blues as wooden spoon candidates this season but they haven't listened to the pundits and midway through the summer they sit fourth, just one spot outside a finals berth.
Macquarie sit five points behind Rugby after winning twice this season, both times over CYMS Cougars.
Despite their two wins coming against last season's wooden spooners the Blues have also pushed some of the top sides this season and were well in the fight against Newtown before going down in a rain-affected match while they were also just edged out by Souths back in round one.
While the Blues don't have the depth with bat or ball this season they've shown that if they can get one or two players to fire then they can mix it with the rest of the competition, evident in their two wins where Keiran Brien and Jason Green scored centuries.
With the ball young gun Angus Cusack has come of age this season but the Blues will be keen to see the likes of Ben Page, Nathan Reichelt and Tyler Cleary find more consistency in the second half of the season to keep the pressure on opposition batting lineups.
Ed Haylock has proved a rock at the top of the order but apart from Brien and Green's centuries big scores have been hard to come by but they have got plenty of value from veteran middle-order player Justin Gavin, who opened his season with a century and has added more vital knocks since.
Despite this season's competition looking incredibly even the Blues may struggle to defeat the top sides in the remaining months of the season, making their matches against CYMS and Souths all the more important as they wait for one of the top three to slip up.
A finals spot may just be out of reach for Macquarie this season but they have already shown they can't be written off and proven there's plenty of life in the squad despite the off-season departures.
