CSU defied the odds last season after placing fifth to make the decider and once there, pushed the dominant Bathurst Bulldogs outfit all the way before falling 19-15.

A handful of players from that team backed up again this season and as CSU has once more qualified for the finals in fifth spot, they have been urging their fellow colts to have self belief.

“We have about five guys from last year’s grand final side, they bring that bit of experience and in key positions, which helps,” CSU coach Jack Kelly said.

“They’ve been talking all week about what happened last year.

“We like taking the scenic route. It’s a bit strange as we’ve beaten the teams ahead of us expect Bulldogs and [Orange] City at least once, we’ve beaten Dubbo and Mudgee at least once.”

Though CSU is eagerly anticipating Sunday’s elimination final against Mudgee Wombats, when the season began the students did not have a side. It took a change in the age restriction for them to form a colts outfit.

“When it was under 19s it just totally cut out a lot of players for us,” Kelly said.

“When it changed it let us jump from three colts players up to 21-22 colts players. No-one comes to uni straight off the bat from school anymore, everyone has a gap year now.

“We wouldn’t have a colts team if we didn’t have that change. We built it along each week, kept pushing through and tried to get a real team ethos around us.”

CSU booked its place in the finals on the back of a 46-5 win over Mudgee last Saturday, a result which gives the students confidence heading into their must-win clash with the Wombats.

Still, that the Wombats beat CSU 29-24 earlier in the season has Kelly wary about what lies ahead.

“You can’t fall into you own trap. We want to go out there and put on a good performance and get that same win or do even better. It’s the first week of the finals and everything is just building up to that one game of the year,” he said.

“Mudgee put the sword to us first time around. The curse of the holidays got us and we didn’t show up to play and Mudgee just really outgunned us with their speed.

“I’ve always found Mudgee has had pretty good speed on the backs and outside centres, they’ve always been pretty solid through the forwards. So it’s going to be about the usual basics of rugby.”

Though Wombats can not be taken lightly, Kelly has confidence in his squad.

Not only does he have a significantly bigger forward pack to work with than is usually the case for CSU teams, but a number of his players have been given first grade experience this season.

“Those guys playing first grade, it definitely does help, you can see it out there. You can see a bit better level of match fitness and they are used to harder knocks,” he said.

“It definitely helps with confidence, but it’s always a bit of a mindset thing, you can’t let them drop off coming down from grades back down to colts. The guys still have to go in with the same mindset.

“We do have flashy players that can finish it off in the end, but we’ve picked up a lot more size with the tight five this year. The colts’ tight five is probably bigger than some of the grade tight fives.

“There are some bloody big lads there, it helps when your two props are pushing about 130 kilos each. So we’ve been relying on our scrum all year, our set piece, and building everything off that.”

Sunday’s game at Ashwood Park will kick-off at 12.10pm.