CYMS player-coach Mick Sullivan was understandably stoked to secure a big win in last weekend’s second all-Orange derby of the Group 10 premier league season, but it only took him about 30 seconds to deliver his troops an important message after the full-time whistle blew.
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That message was simple – keep a lid on the excitement, the job’s nowhere near done.
“If we can play like we did [on Sunday] in September we’re going to be right up there (but) it’s not semi-finals just yet, the important games are still to come,” Sullivan said.
“We usually build into seasons and we did drop a couple of games in the middle there but we’re starting to get guys back and get a bit of a roll-on, hopefully it hasn’t come too early.
“I’ve always believed you need two cracks at it come finals time out here, I’ve said it a lot this year too, and we’ve just been trying to put ourselves in the position to get those two chances.
“We went a long way to doing that [on Sunday] so hopefully we can continue on.”
The 38-10 shellacking pushed Sullivan and his side into third and while that’s realistically where they’ll finish, CYMS are still a chance to jump up to second or even win the minor premiership if other results fall in their favour over the last two weeks.
Sullivan said after Sunday’s game he’s certain the competition-leading Hawks will go on to win that minor title and conceded second-placed Cowra’s run home is an easy one, with that in mind he’s focused on week-to-week performance.
That starts on Sunday against Blayney, the Bears head into what Sullivan always calls a “mini-derby” on the back of their second win of the season last weekend, over Lithgow Workies.
“We emphasised the importance of [last week] and the guys turned up, hopefully we can do the same against Blayney,” Sullivan said.
“If we can play as well as we did [against Hawks] and put on as many points as we can we’ll keep giving ourselves the best chance possible to finish as high as possible on that ladder.”
With Sullivan moving on to the Wingham Tigers after the 2018 season last weekend’s derby was potentially his last, depending on whether CYMS meet Hawks again in the finals of course.
If it does pan out as his last clash with Hawks, he said he’ll go out satisfied with his side winning back bragging rights after dropping the first derby of the season.
He bagged a try too, just his second of the season.
“Tries are few and far between for me, hopefully we can find ourselves a goal-kicker for later in the season too,” Sullivan laughed, poking fun at himself after he kicked with a paltry 50 per cent success rate.
