Border Mail | FINLEY is on the rebound — and it has arch-rival Deniliquin Rams in its sights.
After a rollercoaster month, Cats co-coach Andrew Richardson said his team was ready to start a charge towards the top six against an opponent it lost by two points to earlier in the year.
“Eight sides are in the race to make finals, we’re one of them,” Richardson said.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do get back to the pace set by Tongala and Barooga, but if we get back to the form we showed not too long ago I’m confident we can get there.”
Coming off a frustrating encounter with Moama last weekend, which the Cats lost by 43 points after kicking 1.8 in the second half, Richardson said the Cats had to shake it off and look forward.
“We recovered well after Moama had a pretty dominant first half,” he said.
“But we just couldn’t buy a goal in the second half, we controlled the ball out of the middle and held it in our forward half for long stretches of play, but weren’t able to capitalise.
“We’re going to have to make sure we start well against Deniliquin, they’re always a very competitive side.”
The absence of Nick Roberston and Harley Middleton through injury will be a blow for the Cats, but Richardson was confident his players would rise to the challenge.
“We need a whole team effort to get over the line, relying on just a few players isn’t going to cut it,” he said.
“We saw what this side is capable of against Barooga and Rumbalara, it’s a matter of making that a consistent effort across four quarters.
“With the competition so even, pretty much every team has a chance of getting a win each week.
“The coming weeks are going to be important for us.”