Orange City didn’t beat Dubbo Kangaroos in the 2017 Blowes Clothing Cup second grade regular season, but something’s a little different leading into Sunday’s elimination semi-final at Bathurst’s Anne Ashwood Park.
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The fifth-finishing Lions will finally field a full-strength side.
Well, as close to full strength as it has all season anyway.
The club’s top grade side has been decimated by injury this year and, as per any club, that’s heavily impacted the Lions’ reserve grade unit.
“That’s country rugby though, it hasn’t been our year in terms of injuries. At one stage we sat down and figured out we could’ve fielded a full, strong second grade side just with the injured players,” Orange City skipper Dave Faul, returning from injury this weekend himself, said.
“But we’ve got most blokes on deck for this weekend which is pretty big.
“When we played them in Dubbo we had no one, 14 of the 15 guys who played third grade ran on and they only just got us.
“We stuck it to them when they came to Orange as well, they’re a good side but we know we can put it to them and hopefully we can go one step further than that.”
Although, he did admit his side hasn’t had the toughest of runs into the finals.
“Our last really good hit-out was probably against Orange Emus,” he said, that was back in round 14.
“But we stuck it to them to and Forbes as well, so we’ve competed against the top sides and that gives us a fair bit of confidence.”
It’s pretty well-known how forward-oriented Roos are in the lower grades, as a result Faul says his side’s focus will be laying a platform through the pigs and unleashing its potent backline.
“I think that’s where our real strength lies, we do have good forwards but we’ve got quite a bit of speed so we’ll definitely try to use that,” Faul said.
Kick-off is at 1.30pm.
Matt Findlay
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
