COACH Rick Bailey is looking forward to building on Rovers first win of the season against Buffaloes when the two meet again on Saturday in round seven of the Mount Isa AFL competition.
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Bailey, whose team is coming off a 16-point win, admitted his side was still a work in progress, but could not hold back the joy of his recent triumph.
“I think we did a really good job last week,” Bailey said.
“We sang the song for the first time and that’s exciting too. It’s a bit of spirit just to hear it. It changes the morale a bit, which is important. That’ll hopefully get a few more players to training.”
Bailey will be without Rovers on-baller Dave Petherbridge, who had a standout performance in the previous week, but isn’t going to use Petherbridge’s absence as an excuse.
“A lot of the players have only played a few games. We just need to keep hitting some targets. It was equal at the half break last time and I don’t expect it to be any different this week.”
Buffaloes co-captain Jarrod Hill is concentrating on erasing the slow starts to matches that his teammates have produced in recent weeks.
“We tend to play a good quarter and tend to think the game’s won and all the hard work’s done,” Hill said.
“I don’t think we’ve played a good first quarter yet, which will be a big focus for us.”
Buffaloes will be without the prowess of Matt Sondergeld in the midfield, but coach Adam Cuthbert-Dennis is likely to have the experienced Luke Thornton at his disposal in the back pocket.
In the later game, Lake Nash Young Guns coach Rohan Webb is eyeing the top spot on the ladder when his side takes on Tigers, who lost by 59 points last week.
Webb will have senior players Selwyn Teece and Nathan Ross slot into the line-up at centre field, but will be without halfback Mitchell Mahoney for the weekend.
“Mitchell is relocating for a job. He’s one of our senior and best players so will be a loss.”
The Lake Nash coach was surprised with his team’s big effort in the last outing, but put it down to a well-executed plan against his opponents and playing out each quarter to the fullest.
“We got our best players up for that game and we were pretty confident. I told them that each of them has a job and they did it...The boys played the whole four quarters. They kept going and they didn’t want to stop.”
ROUND 7 DRAW, May 30 at Legend Oval
Rovers v Buffaloes at 12.30pm
Tigers v Young Guns at 2.45pm
LADDER
Tigers 20
Young Guns 20
Buffaloes 4
Rovers 4
