He can only have 15 men on the paddock at Ashwood Park in Saturday’s Blowes Clothing Cup preliminary final, but Bathurst Bulldogs coach Dean Oxley is desperately hoping a massive, parochial crowd will act as a 16th for his side.
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There’s no doubt loud, hostile crowds can provide plenty of intimidation and help a home side grow and extra leg in big games, and Oxley’s hoping that will be an x-factor as his Bulldogs take on the in-form Cowra Eagles.
“I’d like to send a call out to the Bathurst community to support us and get us into the grand final,” he said.
“Certainly games we’ve played at home this year, like when we beat Orange Emus on Memorial Day, the crowd was well in the game there and the boys lift.
“There’s no doubt I believe the boys will be energised by the crowd if the crowd can get behind them.”
Bulldogs have been impressive at home this season, going undefeated through eight games at Ashwood Park and averaging 44 points a game to boot.
Two of those games were against the Eagles, and they ended in 47-7 and 41-10 wins for the Bathurst side.
Still, as impressive as that record is, Oxley knows it will count for nothing if Bulldogs exit the title race on Saturday afternoon.
He would dearly love another shot at Emus, the side which beat his side 28-19 in last weekend’s major semi-final and gave Bulldogs a lesson on the big stage.
“We can’t rely on that record, all bets are off and Emus really showed us how to play the intensity of semi-final football. It’s one thing to try and prepare the boys mentally, but they have to go out there and be aware of what will happen,” Oxley said.
“We need to find that edge this weekend in a different competition to the round games.”
Bulldogs will have one change to the side which played last Saturday given Alex Weal has been ruled out under the blue card concussion rule, after getting his head in the wrong spot trying to tackle Emus wrecking ball Nas Havealeta last weekend.
His spot at flanker will be filled by club captain Mark Donnelly.
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As for Cowra’s line-up, Oxley expects it to be stronger than the Eagles line-ups they have previously conquered.
“We just have to handle their physicality. They tries to bully us in Cowra when we played the curtain-raiser to the Shute Shield, they really applied pressure to us being a younger, smaller side,” he said.
“We also need to back our skill set because our skill set has been scoring us these points throughout the year. Our ball retention against Emus last weekend was not good enough, it was not at a standard which would allow us to win … so we need to maintain possession.”
While Bulldogs are searching for their first grand final appearance in some years, Emus’ second and third grade sides and colts will all be looking to join their first grade counterparts in the big dance.
While the colts take on Orange City, the greens’ second and third XVs both play Dubbo Kangaroos.
“The plan’s certainly to have all four sides at Endeavour Oval next weekend, it’s a pretty big carrot to have dangling there,” Emus club captain Matt Findlay said.
“We’ve ticked the first box in first grade winning through which obviously gives us hosting rights too, and it’s a pretty rare opportunity to potentially have our other three senior men’s sides there as well.
“There’s plenty of work to be done before that happens though and no one is looking too far ahead. There’s three tough games to be won on Saturday first, that’s the focus.”
Saturday’s first grade clash kicks off at 3.15pm, after the remainder of the games.
- BATHURST BULLDOGS: 1 Aaron Booby, 2 Sean Fogarty, 3 Joel Harper, 4 Dylan Carter, 5 Justin Mobbs, 6 Harry Peacock, 7 Mark Donnelly, 8 Peter Fitzsimmons, 9 Josh Oxley, 10 Brad Glasson, 11 Ben Sheppeard, 12 Adam Miles, 13 Harry Webber, 14 Will Oldham, 15 Josh Weekes.
