RUGBY UNION
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ORANGE Emus skipper Nigel Staniforth knows his side has no problems winning games at home, proven by the greens’ 100 per cent winning rate at Endeavour Oval this year.
So far in the 2015 Blowes Clothing Cup season Staniforth and his troop have hosted, and won convincingly, three of the four opening rounds.
The problem is how the greens will fare on the road.
The only away game Emus has played so far this season was against Parkes, which resulted in an unexpected 18-17 loss to a strong Boars unit, and tomorrow the greens will travel to Forbes to take on a physical Platypi side.
“I see Forbes as quite similar to Parkes and Cowra,” Staniforth said.
“They’re very strong at home, and it’s a very tough trip to Forbes. It’s never easy going there and I don’t think it will be (tomorrow) either.”
The greens are coming off a thumping 33-17 victory over Dubbo Kangaroos in a blockbuster 2014 grand final rematch, while Forbes was thumped 31-8 by Bathurst Bulldogs last weekend.
“From what I’ve heard they were similar to us last week, a bit slow out of the blocks,” Staniforth said.
“I think the difference was we recovered against Dubbo. No doubt after a loss like that they will come out guns blazing.
“That’s what we’re looking to work on, starting faster. To be fair we were okay for the first five minutes but then we switched off a bit.
“We finished strongly, but we need to get that habit out of our game.”
Emus will field an all but unchanged line-up, with regular fullback Isaac White - who was unavailable for last weekend’s win over Dubbo - returning to the custodian role, and forcing speedster Carter Hirini to shift back to his wing.
Emus’ clash against the Platypi kicks off at 3.15pm, at Forbes’ Grinsted Oval.
ORANGE EMUS: 1 Nas Havealeta, 2 Keith Howarth, 3 Steve Fergus, 4 Nick Hughes-Clapp, 5 Scott Udy, 6 Andrew Cosgrove, 7 Steve Levett, 8 Rob Thorburn, 9 Seb Backhouse, 10 Adam Perri, 11 Carter Hirini, 12 Simon Badgery, 13 Nigel Staniforth, 14 Tom Green, 15 Isaac White.