WHEN you come up against an opponent who you thumped by 132 points the last time you played them it can be difficult not to get ahead of yourself.
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Keeping a level head is the focus for Bathurst Bushrangers when they play host to the Orange Tigers in AFL Central West senior men's action this Saturday, as the home side look to continue their unbeaten start to the season following the long weekend break.
Bushrangers are hosting the Tigers for the second time in the space of three rounds and they'll be chasing a repeat of the football they brought to the table in the 26-17-173 to 6-5-41 victory from the previous meeting.
There hasn't been much complacency in the team's game of late though Bushrangers' Andrew James believes there's been hints of it in the way they've approached their opening quarters.
However, outside of those starts, James said the team are close to the ideal vision they had of themselves at this point of the season.
"It's something we've been discussing a fair bit lately. We noticed over the last two games that we haven't started they way we wanted to. I wouldn't say it was flat, but it just wasn't as strong as we wanted," he said.
"Going into the bye round we had a group catch up to talk about our goals for the back end of the season and how we can go about on improving things.
"We used the long weekend break as a reset button just to try and continue to hold each other accountable and hopefully after the bye round we can keep it going."
Putting on big points makes for a pretty scoreline but that sometimes detracts from the defensive work.
That's an area that the Bushrangers have looked impressive in over the course of the season, perhaps even more so than the offensive end.
Bushrangers kept the Dubbo Demons scoreless in two quarters during last round's win.
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It's a component of their game that the Bushrangers have taken pride in.
"A big thing this year has been our ability to suffocate other teams. We're numbered up really well behind the ball.
"We've been kicking a lot of points, and once it gets to that forward 50 we're very keen, from the back half moving forward, to lock the ball in there and make it hard for them to work it out.
"They can get one or two kicks clear then after that we've been doing a good job at breaking it back down again."
This will be the last game of a three-game George Park 2 stretch for the Bushrangers, and they've so far capitalised on the run of home matches in a big way.
A strong performance against Orange will set the Bushrangers up well for the next edition of the Bathurst derby against the Giants the following week.
"We've had a consistent team most of the time and we've been directing a lot of our feedback towards each other, and we all know what our roles are," he said.
"We're really keen to get back out there after the break and get stuck in again because all of us are working really well together."
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