NEW South Wales Country Cockatoos coach Mat Thomas is predicting a high scoring and entertaining match this Saturday at Ashwood Park when his men take on the Brumbies Provincial side.

He is also hoping a big crowd of vocal supporters will be there to cheer the Cockatoos on.

Thomas has taken the helm of the representative side this season and he feels it is important that NSW Country plays one of its matches in an area that has a strong link to the Cockatoos.

This year’s squad includes three of Central West’s best in centre Filisione Pauta (Dubbo ’Roos), scrumhalf Mahe Fangupo (Forbes) and lock Chris Miller (Cowra). 

Back rower Harry Veitch, who now plays for Hamilton in the Newcastle-Hunter competition, is a former Saint Stanislaus’ College first XV star, while Cockatoos manager Matt Waterford played his rugby for the Bathurst Bulldogs before he retired.

Thomas himself has a link to Bathurst as well.

“I got married in Bathurst, so we have got a bit of a connection there. I am pretty excited about us playing in Bathurst,” he said.

“We think it is important to play in places like Bathurst. It is geographically difficult because the area New South Wales Country covers is massive, but I think it is important for the guys to give back to the areas they come from.

“It should be a good, flowing game of rugby, I think it should be a high scoring game of rugby too. I hope we can get a good crowd out, people in the gold and black, to support us and be vocal.”

Saturday’s match is the first of a three-game series for the Cockatoos, who will face NSW Suburban in Sydney on June 25 and Queensland Country in Toowoomba on July 2 after tackling the Brumbies Provincial outfit in Bathurst.

Thomas’ side has had one lead-up match, having played the Australian Under 20s on May 28 in Chatswood. While the Cockatoos lost that match 61-0 – the coach saying “their speed killed us in open play – it should put them in good stead to face the Brumbies.

“I’d imagine they are going to be large and have some pretty speedy backs, but we just played the Australian Under 20s who were really speedy and I don’t think the score reflected the game,” Thomas said.

“It is going to be a challenge that we are up against, we are not going to underestimate them, but we are going to respect them. We are just going to concentrate on ourselves and what we can do, because we don’t know anything about them.”

NSW Country beat the Brumbies Provincial side 39-27 in Canberra last year, but since then there have been plenty of changes for the Cockatoos both in terms of players and coaching staff.

Thomas knows he still has a wealth of talent at his disposal, but given his squad are not able to train together regularly he will not be implementing any complex tactics.

“We’ve got strong players all over the park from number one to 15, we have some very talented forwards and have a strong back line and we use our full squad of 23 as well. We really use our bench properly, we need our bench players to have an impact,” Thomas said.

“It is extremely difficult given the geographical area we cover, so I think the simpler, the better. We want to keep everything basic and simple.”

Thomas has made three changes to the squad which took on the Australian Under 20s with experienced Cockatoos Steve Lamont (hooker) and Paul Tuala (flanker) to return from injury while specialist flyhalf Jason Keelan has been added to the bench.

Kick off is at 3.15pm at Ashwood Park on Saturday with the Central West Rugby Union first grade clash between the Bathurst Bulldogs and Forbes Platypi to act as the curtain raiser with a 1.45pm start.