While the Scott Hatch coached students have endured their struggles this season, over the last three weeks CSU has beaten Parkes in Parkes, were labelled “impressive” by Orange Emus coach Paul Ringland and came close to toppling Orange City (31-25).

Now Hatch has his sights set on beating Cowra, a team still in finals contention.

“I think the end of our season is very much moving in the upward direction,” Hatch said.

“I just want to end the comp positively and also show them that we’re not just coming across to make up the numbers so to speak.

“We definitely want to win to be honest. We deserve to win after Orange City, that was very touch and go, so hopefully we get the rub this weekend.

“The boys now understand that they can compete at this level and have got that connection with the players around them and also I think they are starting to come to terms with me. I’m a new coach to the club this year and it takes time to understand how I want to play the the game and understand the structures I want to put in place.”

When meeting Cowra earlier this season, CSU was hit hard by injuries. Their number 8, hooker and a second rower failed to see out the contest as the Eagles posted a 60-29 victory.

But now CSU will hold the home ground advantage and with renewed confidence, Hatch knows his men can do better.

“They’ve recruited really well halfway through the season. I think we copped them the first round over there when they actually got some of the recruits in and we were very much surprised how good they were because the talk up until then was that they were around our sort of level,” he said.

“Then they went on that winning spree. But them coming across to us, we’ve got our charity round this week and it’s also our family round, so it’s a big week for us this week and hopefully we can take some revenge from our close loss last week.”

Kick-off is at 3.15pm.