GROUP 10 coach Mick Rushworth has been impressed with the commitment his players have displayed to each other in the lead-up to today’s historic Centenary Cup clash against Group 21 at Wade Park.
The home side have had a limited preparation consisting of just four training sessions, two which were held yesterday, but their apparent willingness to work for each other could be a vital component in getting through the first-round match-up.
Conversely, Group 21 have already recorded two wins this year at a carnival in Tamworth and they have trained for the five weeks following that tournament.
They come to Orange with a young and enthusiastic side and that is basically all Rushworth knows about today’s opponents.
“Apparently they’re only a very young side but talking to Patty Gibson, he knows a fair bit about them from Nelson Bay, he said that they’ve got some very good players,” Rushworth said.
“He said they’re a young side but ... they’re going to be very hard and very competitive.”
“(But) we’ve just got to worry about our own game, completing sets, and just worry about our own backyard.”
Front-rower Ben McKenna has succumbed to an ankle injury and will not take his place.
St Pat’s forward Matt Lawson comes off the bench into the starting pack, with Lithgow Workies’ Greg Bright called in from the Group 10 emerging squad.
Rushworth claims the change wont have a detrimental effect the Group 10 side, with an initial 21-man squad training together in the lead-up to the NSW and Queensland-wide country rugby league competition.
“It hasn’t disrupted us at all because the 21 blokes have been there for two or three weeks,” the Group 10 coach said.
“Benny had a fitness test obviously and I take my hat off to him, he thought that he would let the side down. He wasn’t fully 100 per cent fit and he put the team before his own representative honours, which is a fantastic effort by the kid.”
Group 10 will also be without former coach Dave Scott, who died last year, and the new mentor believes the passionate Group 10 man will probably be in the thoughts of some of his players.
“I’d say they’ve probably had (him) in the back of their minds since the side was picked and we’ve got a few blokes back that have been away and played under Scotty before, so I’m sure that they’ll be looking to put their best foot forward,” Rushworth said.
Group 10 take on Group 21 at noon today at Wade Park, with the clash between Group 11 and Group 6 immediately after at 1.45pm.
GROUP 10: 1 Johnathan Van Veen, 2 Nathan Rollinson, 3 Todd Barrow, 4 Scott Fittler, 5 Cameron Plummer, 6 Dave Elvy (c), 7 Warick Colley, 8 Hayden Davis, 9 Pat Gibson, 10 Matt Lawson, 11 Brendan Van Veen, 12 Des Knight, 13 Matt Kurtz. Bench: 14 Luke Thompson, 15 Mark Elliott, 16 Greg Bright, 17 Adam Hall.
GROUP 21: 1 Wayne Hedley, 2 Roy Bell, 3 Luke Gardiner, 4 Luke Boldgery, 5 Tom Ernst, 6 Russell Richards, 7 Aaron Watts (c), 8 Michael Millgate, 9 Steven Hinchen, 10 Mark Macaulay, 11 Clinton Tull, 12 Jeremy White, 13 Daniel Ritter. Bench: 14 Gary White, 15 John Johnson, 16 Ben Murray, 17 Brendan Hunt.