ORANGE City stand-in skipper John Colgan said he and his troops are bracing themselves for a forwards-based onslaught from the Cowra Eagles this weekend, a strategy similar to what Forbes employed in their win over the third-placed Lions a fortnight ago.

Although it’s far from panic stations at Pride Park considering the Lions are 3-1 after five rounds, they’ve also had a bye, Colgan said there’s no doubt the fifth-placed Eagles are viewing Saturday’s fixture as a chance to continue their march up the ladder.

Colgan said they’ll have extra motivation as well, considering the long-standing rivalry between the two clubs.

“We’re certainly two clubs who don’t really get along on the field,” Colgan laughed.

“I’m sure they smell blood in the water but we’re always confident, we always go into every game knowing we can win. 

“That loss is probably going to be a good thing ... I think it might be a bit of a wake up call for us, I think the boys know now we can’t keep resting on the glory of previous years, it’s going to take plenty of hard work this year.

“We’ll be better prepared for Cowra after that loss, we took positives from it and we know where we went wrong. We’re expecting them to come hard at us through the forwards like they normally do.”

It’s a fair assumption too, considering the Eagles boast NSW Country Cockatoos squad member Chris Miller, Central West ace Tom Dewhurst, former NSW Combined High Schools flanker Steve Montgomery and experienced prop Dan Burnham in their pack.

“It looks like it’ll be wet too, so it should be a pretty hard slog in the mud,” Colgan said.

“Honestly, we’ve completely gone back to basics after the loss to Forbes. We’ve been working hard to make our game-plan and structures second nature for everybody and I’m confident if we can put that together for 80 minutes we’ll be tough to beat.

“We know they’re going to attack our set-piece too, so we’ve been working really hard on that aspect of our game as well.”

Colgan said the Lions will confirm their starting XV on Friday night, but he said he’s not expecting many changes from the defeat to the undefeated Platypi.

The Lions and Eagles kick-off at 3.15pm, at Pride Park.

ORANGE CITY LIONS (to be confirmed): 1 Darcy Garlick, 2 Jake Johnstone, 3 Logan Brockmann, 4 Ben Wright, 5 Mitch Pearce, 6 Feleti Wolfgramm, 7 Duncan Young, 8 John Colgan, 9 Tom Nell, 10 Keegan Harding, 11 Taylor Smith, 12 Jake Davis, 13 Sam Dwyer, 14 Cameron Cole, 15 Joe Lasagavibau