THIS Saturday CSU will attempt to lift its first New Era Cup premiership trophy in three years, but standing in the way of the Mungoes is a Wallerawang outfit yet to taste defeat.
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While the last three weeks has seen CSU produce some good football to force its way into the grand final, the minor premiership winning Warriors have played just once.
That was a 19-14 major semi-final win over Mungoes to earn hosting rights for the grand final, the victory taking the Warriors’ record to 11 victories and a draw from 12 outings.
That imposing record highlights the difficult task which lies ahead for CSU.
“It’s going to be a tough game, a very tough game over there. We haven’t beaten them this year apart from the knockout competition at the start of the year,” Brad Rushby, a man who has scored more than 150 points for the Mungoes this season, said.
“Across the field they are very strong. They have a very good forward pack with some big boys, their halves, coming off the back of them if they get a quick play the ball – Nic Bender and Josh Howarth – they are very good players.
“Their fullback Reddo [Nathan Redding] is a very good player, he’s very quick and pops up at the right time. They are just strong across the park.
“It means we just have to match them across the park, which hopefully we can do this weekend.”
Though CSU will be the underdogs on Saturday, what the students have done so far this season is enough to give them hope.
As Rushby mentioned, they beat the Warriors in the pre-season knock-out, while the Mungoes also drew 16-all with them in the regular season.
Even in the major semi-final, it took a field goal and two late penalty goals to kill off CSU’s challenge.
“I think a lot of the pressure is on them being a home grand final and playing in front of all their home fans and not losing a game all year,” Rushby said.
“But we know what we’ve got to do.
“It’s going to be massive trying to play field position all day, just like it was in the semi-final two weeks ago.
“It’s going to be very similar to last weekend, very physical, fast.
“Everyone is very excited, we got bus loads of supporters for the team coming over. We’ve got about five or six buses headed over there with all the students on it, so we’re hoping to have a big crowd behind us and hopefully that gives us extra motivation to get over the line.”
The New Era Cup grand final will kick-off at 2.30pm Saturday at Wallerawang Sportsground.
