COLTS

LOYALTIES in the Findlay family will be split tomorrow when Orange City and Orange Emus meet tomorrow in the Blowes Menswear Cup colts final in Bathurst.

Matt Findlay will captain the Emus side in the grand final qualifier while brother Ben will line up at flanker for Orange City.

The local derby will give one side the opportunity to knock their rivals out of contention while they go on to the grand final next weekend.

Orange City coach Paul Kennedy said that it would be nice to end Emus’ season.

“It would be excellent. It would be good to beat them,” he said.

Emus caretaker coach Peter Udy felt similarly about knocking the Lions out of it and getting the chance to make up for their grand final loss last year.

“We’d like to be back there again. We were there last year but lost it in a close final,” Udy said. “(And) the intercity rivalry is always pretty tightly fought.”

ORANGE CITY COLTS: 1 Eamon Buckerfield, 2 Chris Senior, 3 Daniel Blandford, 4 Keith Lawson, 5 Matt Dillon (c), 6 Oliver Rickard, 7 Ben Findlay, 8 Duncan Young, 9 James Alexander, 10 Anthony Rusdun, 11 Ben Mills, 12 Sam Coote, 13 Luke Hayes, 14 Bevan Parker, 15 Barton Young

ORANGE EMUS COLTS: 1 Matt Findlay, 2 Luke Turner, 3 Sean Trotter, 4 Chris Hayes, 5 Ben Parkes, 6 Scott Udy, 7 Andrew Selwood, 8 Josh Hart, 9 Troy Harmer, 10 Will Oldham, 11 Wicus Naude, 12 BJ McKenna, 13 Nick Longmore, 14 Josh Healy, 15 Beau Harris.

THIRD GRADE

A WEALTH of first grade finals experience got Orange Emus third grade through last week but coach Barry Ruddy doesn’t think his side can rely on that happening again in their Blowes Menswear Cup third grade final against CSU Bathurst.

The two sides will meet tomorrow at Bathurst’s Ashwood Park with Emus boasting a much more experienced side than the students.

But Ruddy says while his players are just as keen to win the third grade title as they were to take out the first grade premiership back in their hey day, experience alone will not get them over the line.

“Any grand final, they’re hard to get into and they’re hard to win and these guys, while they have plenty of first grade experience, they are firmly in the third grade mould now in terms of fitness,” Ruddy said.

Emus will also boast someone with first grade experience this year as Matt Ripps will play at scrum-half after overcoming a broken collarbone.

ORANGE EMUS THIRDS: 1 Damian Northey, 2 Mitch Rodwell, 3 Bruce Morrison, 4 Geoff Potts, 5 Damien McDonald, 6 Stu Brisbane, 7 Frazer Pigot, 8 Derek Scott, 9 Matt Ripps, 10 Matt King, 11 Shannon Riley, 12 Reg Henderson, 13 James Whittaker, 14 Dave Powell, 15 Mitch Staniforth.