ONE team is playing for survival, the other for respect and the resulting clash promises to be a ripper.
The Cootamundra Bulldogs will play host to Wagga Brothers at Fisher Park on Sunday in what could be the most defining 80 minutes of the
season for both sides.
The Bulldogs are in eighth place and simply must win if they are to hang onto any hopes of playing semi final football and, while they are still safely entrenched in the top six, Brothers are in freefall.
Among the early season pacesetters, Brothers are now considered by many as pretenders rather than contenders, a reputation the Bulldogs can enhance with victory on Sunday.
Brothers captain-coach Blake Dunn hit his side with the ultimate insult
following their 42-10 capitulation to Southcity last weekend.
In a no holes barred appraisal of his team’s effort, in which they trailed by just four points at the break, but were outscored 28-0 in the second stanza, Dunn labelled Brothers ‘too soft’.
Nothing spurs on a footballer more than the inference they have a weak underbelly and you can bet the entire Brothers side, and in particular the big men up front, will be out to prove their skipper wrong.
The Wagga side is expected to
welcome back up to four players for Sunday’s clash, including Dunn’s naemsake Brock and the experienced Matt Ridley, however they face a tough task in turning around arguably their worst 40 minutes of the season last week.
Meanwhile the Bulldogs were
delivered some good news during the week, with hard-working hooker Nathan Corby cleared of any breaks to his thumb.
Corby reeled out of a tackle early in last week’s loss to Junee and
immediately left the field fearing he had re-aggravated an old injury.
He returned late in the half but was in obvious discomfort and didn’t take any part in the second half.
“I thought it was broken because the area where I had shattered it before looked all sunken,” Corby said during the week.
“I went to hospital in Junee after the game and they put a back-slap on it, but I had an X ray on Monday and there were no breaks, just bruising on the bone.”
Corby is adamant he’ll be right to take his place on Sunday for what is easily one of the Bulldogs biggest games of the year.
The long serving utility said his team would be silly to read too much into Brothers 32-point loss last week knowing too well the Wagga side had a number of players unavailable.
“They had three or four out, but even so will be keen to turn their season around on Sunday,” Corby said.
Pressed on where he believes the Bulldogs need to improve, Corby identified ball security as a major issue.
“Les (coach Les Boyd) stressed at half time last week that we’re too small of a side to keep coughing up the ball,” he said.
“If we use up all our juice in attack, especially if it’s come off the back of our errors, we haven’t got enough left in the tank for attack.
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