While most of the greens have no doubt played on University Oval a number of times, it’s very familiar territory for a handful of the side Orange Emus coaches Paul Ringland and Jeremy Wallace have named to face CSU Bathurst on Saturday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Three of the greens’ top-graders are ex-Mitchell Men, that’s why.
Not just the Emus first XV actually, there’s a liberal sprinkling of former CSU players throughout the Orange club.
Stand-in skipper Nick Hughes-Clapp, hooker Tom Goolagong and fill-in prop Matt Findlay all spent time in the black, gold and sky blue of CSU.
“There’s a few others too, guys like Al Hattersley who’s hurt at the moment and Steve Fergus as well, so it’s certainly not unfamiliar territory,” Findlay said.
“It’s been a long time since any of us were at CSU, so our generations have been and gone, but we still always look forward to going back down and playing against Mitchell.
“It’s always good fun and it’s always tough playing down there as well.”
There’ll be no taking CSU lightly either, Findlay said, despite the fact there’s a full 55 competition points between the greens and students on the Blowes Clothing Cup table – they’re first and ninth, respectively.
“That doesn’t reflect the students’ ability,” he said.
“They’ve always got a sense of danger about them, particularly in Bathurst. They’re coming off a good win too and look like they’re building to a strong finish to the season.”
After last week’s away win over Parkes, mathematically CSU can actually still make the top five.
Ninth on 14 points, trailing fifth-placed Orange City on 27, four straight bonus point wins to finish the season would push the students to 34 points, although they’d need several other results to fall their way too to qualify.
They’d need to beat Emus, City and Cowra – all well above them on the ladder – and then last-placed Mudgee in the final round too.
“That does add a touch more spice to it, although that scenario would require something pretty special,” Findlay said, admitting you’d be remiss to rule it out completely.
“It’s probably more likely they’ll play a spoiling role for teams above them, we’ll just try and make sure they don’t do that to us.”
Building on last week’s showing against Orange City, which netted the greens a 58-7 win, is crucial to that.
“We probably switched off a couple of times against Orange City I think, took our foot off the gas. Didn’t start all that well either,” Findlay said.
“With CSU playing fast-paced, exciting rugby, they can score plenty of points in a short space of time if you do switch off for a long period.”
Kick-off at University Oval is 3.15pm.
- ORANGE EMUS: 1 Matt Findlay, 2 Tom Goolagong, 3 Michael Graham, 4 Nick Hughes-Clapp ©, 5 Harry Hamilton, 6 Scott McLean, 7 Jack Marchinton, 8 Rob Thorburn, 9 Sam Green, 10 Mitch Evers, 11 Tom Green, 12 Lachie Harris, 13 Carter Hirini, 14 Levi Russell, 15 AJ Sykes