HE could certainly live without the tense finishes and there is definitely room for improvement, but CSU coach Dave Conyers is proud about what his side has done over the opening fortnight of the New Holland Cup.
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After a pre-season which Conyers feared would impact CSU's early performances - the coach admitting "It's probably the most under-prepared season I've ever been involved with" - the students have notched up back-to-back wins on the road.
In their opener against Narromine at Cale Oval, the students held on for a 19-3 win after one stage leading by 16 points.
Then in round two away against the Dubbo Rhinos, CSU zipped out to a 17-0 lead then survived a fightback from the hosts to prevail 22-19.
"Yeah I could do without them," Conyers laughed of the close finishes. "When you are leading 17-0 you think 'Well we'll go on with this', but we lost our way a little bit.
"We let them back in there a bit, we got a yellow card in the last 10 minutes and we had a try disallowed in the corner which was a dead-set try, we also missed five shots at goals, so we made it hard on ourselves.
"Rhinos had a couple of really good players and really tested us in the middle there. The second half they just played a scrappy sort of game and we just lost our structure a bit.
"But it was another win on the road, so I'm pretty happy with that."
While university holidays forced Conyers to make changes to his starting XV, the impressive work CSU's forward pack did against Narromine continued against Rhinos.
They stole the ball three times from Rhinos' line-outs, they won three tight-heads and on five occasions helped the students string together more than four consecutive phases.
The pack also contributed to five line breaks and four turnovers.
"In the last few minutes when they were attacking us, we won three tight-heads and stole a few of their line-outs. Our scrum was really solid again," Conyers said.
"Marcus Burrell had an outstanding game from the prop position as did Harry McGriplis from the nine position. Forwards Jonah Ruzgas and Lachy Melville both had strong performances. Hooker Lance Dunn claimed the player's player award with a busy effort in tight."
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