Wellington Cowboys coach Aiden Ryan said the whole town has thrown its support behind the team as they head into the unfamiliar territory of finals football.
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Ryan said having the reserves, under 18s and first grade in the semi-finals was ‘pretty good for the club considering the last two years have only had one team in either semi’.
“It’s massive, the whole town is right behind us”
All three grades took home wins against Dubbo Macquarie last week week before heading into the semi-finals with first grade winning the right to host Parkes at home on Sunday.
“We are all working together to get the fundamentals right and we are all looking forward to having the supporters there at home rallying behind us,” the coach said.
Ryan said while there was a few nervous teammates, having never played in the finals before, they were being mentored by their more experienced counterparts to prepare them.
“They really don’t know what they are in for, but we are taking about past experience with them, and we want them to be prepared. It’s a massive challenge now and a whole different ball game to what normal round football is.”
The Cowboys bring plenty of form into the finals after a 44-28 victory against the Raiders, their third win in a row, and just one loss to Dubbo CYMS during the second half of the season.
Meanwhile Parkes are coming off the back of a heavy 44-6 loss to their rivals Forbes last week.
Despite the difference in form, Ryan is expecting a tough challenge.
They split their regular season encounters with one win each. Parkes won 28-24 at Kennard Park in May, while Wellington won the return match 25-24 in July but Ryan said it could have easily been different.
“We don’t start well with Parkes and we always struggle to beat them, but we know what kind of side they are, and we know we have to play a lot smarter football.
“We know we can win. They had a good lead on us last time and our completion rate was so disgraceful that we shouldn’t have won, but we did. So we know we can beat them, we just have to do it the easy way and not the tough way.”
Rysan said his side needed to improve their defence after conceding four tries against Macquarie but said the side would be aided by the return of leading trio Justin Toomey-White, EJ Fernando and Richard Peckham.
“We need to work on our defence. We know we can score points, but our defence has been really soft in patches. Last week we let Macquarie score 18 points in the last 15 minutes. This week we need to defend our butts off a lot better than that.
The Cowboys will host the match against Parkes in Wellington at 2pm on Sunday.