ORANGE Emus coach Andrew Logan wants his troops to maintain the rage in Saturday’s round six Blowes Clothing Cup clash against Cowra.
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Emus travel to Cowra Rugby Ground to take on the Eagles in a third versus fourth clash, with both teams looking to entrench themselves in the top five.
“This is a really key game for us,” Logan said.
“If we can win [tomorrow] it’ll go a long way to putting us in a good position after the first round of games, which is crucial. We have six of nine games in round two at home, and will play all those tough sides like (Bathurst) Bulldogs and (Dubbo) ‘Roos at home.”
Emus are coming off a runaway 48-17 win over the Forbes Platypi last weekend, while Cowra will be looking to bounce back after a one-point loss to Bulldogs.
“We just need to be doing more of the same, I think,” Logan said.
“We played unstructured rugby for about 20 minutes at Forbes, and it showed in how tough the game got for us. Once we found our structure again, and started playing some patterns, we ran away with it a bit at the end.
“We’ve never had any problem scoring points, but our defence isn’t quite where it needs to be yet. Cowra like to kick and play territory football, so our back three are going to need to be on their game.”
Swashbuckling breakaway Alo Finau will miss the clash with a broken thumb, but will be replaced by former Eastwood Shute Shield flanker Shane Udy.
Speedster Carter Hirini will also miss Saturday’s game, replacing his boots with sheet music in Orange Theatre Company’s production of Chicago.
ORANGE EMUS: 1 Nas Havealeta, 2 Keith Howarth, 3 Brent Braithwaite, 4 Sam McLean 5 Nick Hughes-Clapp, 6 Shane Udy, 7 Andrew Cosgrove, 8 Rob Thorburn, 9 TJ Cunynghame, 10 Adam Perri, 11 Lachlan Harris 12 Tim Alison, 13 Nigel Staniforth (c), 14 Tom Green, 15 Sam Ryan.
