AFTER an acceptable but hardly convincing start to the Central West Rugby Union season, CSU will be put to the ultimate test tomorrow when they travel to Narromine to take on the Gorillas in arguably the toughest road trip of them all.
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Four rounds into the competition, and there is a distinctly unfamiliar look about the competition’s top five.
It is headed by Parkes who have been at the other end of the ladder for years, along with Forbes and Cowra in third and fourth respectively.
Though both those sides have generally been competitive in recent seasons, few would have pencilled them in to each have three wins up until this point.
Joining those three surprise packets are top five regulars Narromine and CSU and for the students especially, tomorrow’s match will be crucial to their ambitions of staying in the top portion of the table.
The Gorillas have been a genuine bogey side for CSU in recent years, and a win for Morgan Grivas’ team would break a drought stretching back to April 2008 when the students won 34-17 in Bathurst.
Only one player remains from that side in number 8 Matt Boylan-Smith, and the five matches since then between the two have been a tail of heartbreak for he and his side.
Ironically Boylan-Smith will miss out tomorrow through unavailability.
“Narromine have had it over us for a while, they are obviously a very strong side with a premiership and a few grand finals over the last three or four years and when you come up against a home crowd like theirs, they are a tough side to match,” Grivas said.
“They [the crowd] really lift them over there. On top of that, they have a very strong pack and their back three are all quick and they have given us a lot of trouble in broken play and on the counter-attack over the last three seasons.
“We are working at training this week on the basis that it’s still the case.”
Grivas admitted that he wasn’t sure about Narromine’s player-movements leading into this season, but seeing them with three wins from four matches is enough evidence for him that they are still a powerhouse.
“They had a tough road trip to Cowra but like we found out, Cowra are a very hard side to beat at home as well, and they really gave it to Rhinos last week. Looking at the table tells you they are still strong,” the CSU mentor said.
“I don’t really feel as though they have a psychological edge over us, most of our backs have played them before but our forwards are relatively inexperienced so we won’t be worried about past matches. We’ll go in confident.”
Despite being pummelled by the Parkes tight-five in the scrums during their 18-7 loss last Saturday, CSU will take confidence from their own performance in the forwards as they prepare for the Gorillas.
“I don’t think our scrum is at the level where it can dominate anyone yet, but we only lost one of our own feeds against Parkes and there were a lot of scrums during that game,” Grivas explained.
“Although it doesn’t feel right because we were getting pushed back so much, we were giving away an extra 10 kilos to each of the Parkes forwards and to only lose one feed was a bit of a boost.”
Grivas himself will start the match at tight-head while Nick Alcock moves to loose-head, Mitch Brown comes into the second row and Zander Williment will be pushed to the back of the scrum.
CSU take on the Gorillas at Cale Oval from 3pm tomorrow.
CSU: 1 Nick Alcock, 2 Hiram Brooke, 3 Morgan Grivas, 4 Toby Key, 5 Mitch Brown, 6 Jono Palmer, 7 Luke Gornalle, 8 Zander Williment, 9 Dom Longhurst, 10 Matt Coote, 11 Alex Brown, 12 Tom Clyburn, 13 Nathan Morris, 14 Jack Garrad, 15 Sam Coote.
