The Young Yabbies First Grade team are in for a big day as they come up against top-of-the-table Bushrangers in Round 9 of Canberra’s John I Dent Cup.
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The round will be run in conjunction with the club’s annual Old Boy’s day at Cranfield Oval on Saturday which will see former rugby players gather for a day at the football.
It’s bound to be an intense day of rugby as Young host the undefeated Hall Rugby Club in a match First Grade captain Hagon Williams predicts to be challenging.
“I’ll be expecting a pretty physical match, so it’ll be a pretty tough game up in the forwards,” Williams said.
But he isn’t letting the Bushrangers’ success to date intimidate his side who he says has shown great potential in previous weeks.
“We’ve got a solid forward pack which has been performing pretty good each week, and a good back pack who just need to get their combinations together and support each other’s play,” he said.
“We just need to get all our combinations together and game structure working.
“We’ve been showing glimpses of good football, but we have to put in a whole game effort instead of 15 minute periods.
“[The Bushrangers] are a strong, dominate, hard hitting team, we just have to counteract that, prepare for a physical game, spread out wide and get around them.”
The Yabbies are again in fighting form following a season-ending injury to English signing Jack Biggins in last weekend’s clash against Goulburn, with younger players stepping up to fill the hole.
“It’s set us back a little bit but we’ve got younger players coming up through [the ranks] who are just as good which is good for us,” Williams said.
“We’re back to a full squad after last week’s incident and have plenty of players who are all going well.”
The day will kick off with the Under 16s at 11am, followed by the Under 18s at 12.15pm, Reserve Grade at 1.30pm and the main game of the day at 3pm.