The Cowra Blues did the Dubbo Demons no favours on Saturday, forfeiting to the Bathurst Bushranger Outlaws for the second time this season.
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While the Outlaws would have been raging favourites had the game gone ahead, Dubbo would have been hoping for an upset in order to make up ground on the top three sides.
Cowra has forfeited for two weeks running after also ruling itself out of last round’s match against the Bathurst Bushrangers Rebels.
Outlaws co-coach Matt Archer said his side as disappointed to see the defending premiers struggling for numbers each week.
“Over the 10 years I’ve been involved here Cowra have always been a force, and we’ve built up a good rivalry with them in that time,” he said.
“To go from that rivalry to what we’ve seen this year is just heartbreaking really.
“It’s not the ideal finals preparation for us. With the games that we’ve missed and the byes it feels like we’ve hardly played over the last month and a half.”
A team not struggling for cohesion is the Bushranger Rebels, which won again to stay top of the pile in Central West AFL.
The Rebels conceded just a single behind in the third term at George Park to set up a convincing 14-13-97 to 5-9-39 victory over the Bathurst Giants.
It was a pleasing effort for Rebels co-coaches Matt Griffin and Steve Grundy, who had endured a tense finish earlier in the season when Giants got within 10 points of them.
“We were pretty happy with the result. Obviously last time when we played them they really pushed us, so that motivated us to put in a good performance this time,” Grundy said.
“The game felt similar to the last one we played against them, we were up by about 50 points in that game and fell asleep and they nearly rolled us.
“So this weekend we refocused at half-time to make sure we maintained our intensity and didn’t really give them a chance to get back into the game.”
The Orange Tigers enjoyed the bye on the weekend and sit four points ahead of Dubbo and only behind the Outlaws on differential.