RUGBY LEAGUE
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It wasn’t the result that mattered but what they learned from it that will stand Villages United in good stead for this weekend’s rematch with the Wallerawang Warriors.
That’s the view of Villages co-coach Kris Kennedy as his team prepare to face the side who beat them 28-26 in the last round of the New Era Cup on Saturday.
The match served as a perfect warm-up for both sides before their qualifying final, with a place in the major semi-final against Blackheath at stake for the winner.
For the loser it will mean they face either CSU or Lithgow Bears in next week’s minor semi.
Though the Warriors will undoubtedly take some momentum into this Saturday’s showdown, having come from behind to snare victory, Kennedy saw enough from his team to suggest that they can quickly remedy some problem areas.
“The loss kind of puts us back in our place a little bit and shows us some of the things we need to work on,” he said.
“We know what we have to do now. They are a side who like to rush up in defence and get off their line quickly, and we need to handle that a bit better.
“We were a bit scrappy at times and gave away some silly penalties, so our discipline has to improve. I also thought that we didn’t use our width enough, we were pretty one-out in the middle of the field, especially in the second half.”
After a fast start to the season, Villages had a couple of hiccups during the middle stages of the competition, but in general have been one of the better teams in the premiership race and their final finish in third spot reflected it.
They never dropped out of the top five throughout the entire regular season.
They bring good form into the semis having put 50 points on the finals-bound Bears and Kandos in their last four games, while they were far from disgraced against Blackheath in a 12-point defeat.
There is no reason they shouldn’t be confident of testing the Blackcats again if they can sneak past Wallerawang today.
Kennedy is positive his players can continue on an upward curve and earn a valuable win over the Warriors.
“The first time we played them they beat us by 10, so it was an improvement on that, and I give us a big chance of winning this weekend.
“Overall on Saturday we were very good at the start of the match and if it hadn’t have been for some silly mistakes which probably led to a few easy tries for them, we would have done enough to win.”
Saturday’s match will kick off at 2.30pm at the Wallerawang Sportsground.