Bathurst Bulldogs ready for another physical encounter with Orange City in Blowes Cup

Bulldogs travel to face the Lions this weekend fresh of a scarcely believable win over the Forbes Platypi, where the Bathurst men piled on 28 points in across the final seven minutes to win 40-12.

They'll look to deliver a similar offensive onslaught against a Lions side who they've already beaten 43-5 earlier this season at Ashwood Park.

Oxley said that previous contest was a bruising scoreline but it was also bruising on the bodies of the Bulldogs men, who have to get set for another physical encounter against a team not short of enthusiasm.

"We had a very physical game against Orange City at Bathurst and I'm expecting this to be a very hard fixture," he said.

"They had a very close game against [competition leaders] Cowra, a 16-8 loss, and they had a disallowed try that would have made it a 16-15 loss. City will win games this year and they've been playing a far more positive style of football.

"There is no easy game, and the players are aware of that. The ladder's irrelevant. Forbes have beaten Cowra and they've beaten City twice and they've been competitive in every single game they've played. We've been lucky to beat them on the two games we've had."

Bulldogs' wild finish against Forbes last round was earned on the back of consistent, high pace of play towards the back end of the match.

It's that consistency and adherence to the game plan that Oxley believes can take his side far this round.

"When you don't have patience and commitment to the team plan that can lead to teams playing as individuals, and we never have good outcomes based on that, so the focus for us is repeating the positive play we made in both halves after making a couple of changes," he said.

"The way that we play football when we're playing as a unit, combining well, is just a whole different thing for the opposition to stop when we've got threats across the park.

"Every player needs to understand their potential to be a threat and therefore the opposition find it hard to nullify that when it's across the whole team.

"If we take our eye off the prize and our commitment to the way we play football then we will lose this weekend.

"I don't want to be that statistic that says 'We're a team that sometimes turns up'. We want to be more consistent than that. When players don't stick to the job we unravel and damage ourselves, then we're left trying to repair the damage. That can be a difficult process.

"Enjoying our rugby and playing a free flowing game is the way we want to play our rugby for the rest of the season."

Bulldogs have two significant outs this Saturday with Bailey Warren and Justin Mobbs having representative rugby and work commitments respectively.

Ryan Harper goes into the second row while Josh Corby shifts in the front row. Ben Wright also joins the second row this Saturday.

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