By Tania Phillips
Warwick Cowboys have continued on their winning way in the TRL Hutchinson Builders A Grade 2024 competition with a good tough 32-12 win over Pittsworth at Father Ranger Oval on Saturday night.
It was ladies day on Saturday and the women were treated to a Cowboys outfit that was on-fire, going to the break with a 16-nil lead.
It seems all of the Coach Col Speed, his staff and the team’s hard work has paid off in recent weeks with the side not only unbeaten after five rounds but for the second week in a row the team put the first points of the game after being forced to come from behind in the early games.
Speed is hoping that the trend will continue when the high-flying Cowboys face the Toowoomba Valleys at John McDonald Sports Complex in Toowoomba on Saturday night for round six.
“We had a good win over Pittsworth who are always a strong country side,” he said.
He said they basically had a few goals that they needed to improve on after the first few rounds and it was coming together now with a 16-nil lead at half time and an 85 per cent completion rate.
“It was a massive improvement, defensively we held them out until the last five to ten minutes and that was based on the back end of them having a couple of penalties in a row and we had one in the sinbin as well,” he said.
“But I was very proud of the defensive efforts and we’ve just got to keep chipping away and keep improving.”
Speed said he made a few too many interchanges late in the game trying to worry about the future rather than the current game.
“We have a tough one against valley’s next week and the boys get a week off after that and get to freshen up,” he said.
“We have the bye after that. But then again I probably shouldn’t have been thinking of next week, I should have been thinking about the present, I’ll put my hand up for that. We also had the opportunity to rest Byron Crighton at the weekend which was good, which freshens his body up at this time of the year and gives other people an opportunity as well. It was fortunate enough that Matty Marshall played some really good footy the week before and so we were able to bring him up into the squad on the bench and use him as a utility. He was really good – he filled in, in the halves for us, scored a good try and unfortunately he was sin-binned for lifting tackle.”
However he got 10 minutes in the sinbin but no report went in and he will be clear to play next week against Valleys and while it is a big game Speed believes it’s just the next challenge.
“I think we’ve been tested all along and the biggest thing is the self accountability which is very evident,” he said.
“When I came back on Tuesday night last week, although we’d won by 50 plus a few of the boys were really disappointed in their game. They wanted to better and thought they could be better in certain areas. If we keep with that attitude and mindset – that’s what you want.”
The club won in all three grades at the weekend. A grade 32-12 – Tries to: Nicholas CHAPMAN, 1, Joel TAPIE 11, Joseph Vite 18, Hayden ENSBEY 42, Nicholas CHAPMAN 49, Mathew MARSHALL 62. Caleb Murphy 4-6 conversions.
