After the New Holland Agriculture Cup regular season was brought to a premature end, the Dubbo Rhinos will enjoy the week off before turning their attention to a semi-final clash against Mudgee.
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Rhinos coach Doug Sandry and hie wholeheartedly agreed with the decision made by Central West Rugby Union to call off this weekend's matches around the region due to COVID-19 lockdowns in the Orange, Cabonne and Blayney regions.
"It was the right decision," he said.
"Totally the right decision, we support Central West in the decision they made.
"We agree and, in particular, the decision to not continue the competition and just got into the semi-finals next week.
"Nothing changes in our competition, Parkes still finish first and we still fourth and now have to go to Mudgee next weekend.
The Rhinos were set to travel to Parkes to face the Boars who lost their first match of the season last week against CSU Bathurst.
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After a tough loss to Narromine in their own match last weekend, Sandy knows the Rhinos would've liked the chance to face Parkes ahead of the finals.
"It would've been nice," he said.
"But at the end of the day, we've got to protect everyone.
"It would have been nice to get over there and try a few things we have been working on at training on Tuesday night.
"But that's okay, we will go in fresh against Mudgee and that's going to be really tough because it is their last home match ever at Jubilee Oval.
"It's going to be very hard to knock Mudgee off over there."
The positive for the Rhinos is they will have two weeks between matches as well as four training sessions to prepare for next weekend's minor semi-final, with the loser of the game being knocked out.
Sandry admitted some of the side was still feeling the affects of the Narromine match at training earlier this week.
"We still had some pretty sore bodies at training on Tuesday," he said.
"A couple of guys didn't train because they were just too sore. It was a fairly physical game against Narromine, they came out to play and let us know.
"The break will do us the world of good, it will give us four sessions to work on not only our structure but a couple of other things at the breakdown as well."
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