YOU would be hard pressed to find two sides more equally matched this Central West AFL season than the Bathurst Bushrangers Rebels and Cowra Blues.
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When the sides come together for the third time this season on Saturday they do so having played out two games this year where the margin has come down to two points or less.
Unfortunately for the Rebels they’ve been on the wrong side of that score card each time.
Blues rallied back from a poor third quarter to win 10-12-72 to 10-10-70 in the first head-to-head back in May while just a fortnight ago the Blues got on top late for a 9-12-66 to 9-11-65 success.
Rebels co-coach Tom Regan hopes it’s third time lucky when they meet on Cowra’s home turf.
“I know we’ve got the cattle to do it, it’s just about being able to turn up on the day and believing that we can do it,” he said.
“Cowra will be stronger over there on their home ground but we’ll be strong too. Hopefully if the weather stays alright we’ll be able to show our speed and what we can do.”
We’ve finally got guys back out there again with a footy in hand, working on the skills that we’ve been needing to practice.
- Bathurst Bushrangers Rebels co-coach Tom Regan
Wet weather has hampered the Rebels chances over the past month of getting together for training sessions.
However, a break in the wet weather and improvement in player numbers have Regan feeling confident.
“The big thing for us is that we’ve been able to train a lot this week. We’ve also had guys away on uni holidays. Now we’ve got a full team training together again,” he said.
“We’ve finally got guys back out there again with a footy in hand, working on the skills that we’ve been needing to practice.
“You can go out there knowing exactly what you have to do but if you haven’t been practicing it then that makes it a lot harder.”
Rebels come into the match of another loss to their Outlaws club mates in a 8-14-62 to 3-10-28 score.
Regan said if there’s one big lesson to take away from that game it’s that interchange choices and player rotations have to be on point.
“With the Outlaws having such a strong forward line we had to bring some of our players who are normally in the midfield into the back line to cope with that,” he said.
“That sort of messed with our rotations so we’ve got to make sure we’re on top of that this time.”
Shaun Noyen was a late omission from last week’s match but he will be on hand for Saturday’s game.
One of the leading players from the game against Outlaws, Reilly Goodfellow, won’t be available for the trip to Cowra.
A win for the Rebels is a must if they’re to keep their second place hopes alive.
The gap between the Blues and Rebels is currently at 12 points.
Only four points now separate the Dubbo Demons from the Rebels.
