CSU will be putting aside a poor preparation when they travel to Dubbo on Saturday for their Blowes Clothing Cup match against the Dubbo Rhinos.
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The students, who had the bye last week, have plenty to play for with the two teams they could potentially catch for a spot in the top five in Dubbo 'Roos and Bathurst Bulldogs having good wins last week, leaving CSU 12 points shy of fifth.
Holidays and closed fields have meant a lack of training as well.
"It hasn't been a good lead-up for us, we are supposed to train tonight [Thursday] and tomorrow [Friday] but the fields are still closed because of all the rain so there are concerns there about how match-ready we're going to be," CSU coach Pip McIntosh said.
"I would prefer to meet Rhinos in a free-flowing, dry weather football sort of clash but that might not happen depending on how their field has held up. They are a different proposition at home normally regardless of the conditions.
"I would expect them to be much tougher than they were in round one, I've been following their recent form and it is actually quite good, I gave them a big chance against Parkes last weekend and they delivered on that.”
McIntosh added he wants his side to focus solely on this match and scoring their fourth win of the season rather than harbouring any thoughts of finals rugby.
"Ideally we would love to play semi-final football but that's not what I want them thinking about, I just want to see us continue to get better and push the good teams further and further," he said.