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Pek Cowan is happy to be back playing as a prop for the Emirates Western Force and with how the forward pack has helped the team rack up two straight wins now.
Cowan came into the season picking up a new role playing as hooker after his standout 2009 season where he became one of the best loosehead props in the country and found his way into the Wallabies squad to travel to the UK on the Grand Slam tour and play three times for his country.
Even though Ryan Tyrrell has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a neck injury after two starts at hooker, Cowan has now moved back to his customary role in the No. 1 jersey with Ben Whittaker and Nathan Charles performing solidly as hooker.
Cowan is happy with how the changes have been working and with Nic Henderson also pushing for the loosehead role with Tim Fairbrother and Matt Dunning doing well at tighthead, he feels the Force have a terrific mix.
"I've felt pretty good. The proof is in the pudding with the scrums going well and personally I wasn’t too sure how I would go given it had been 12 weeks since I had scrummaged as a prop, but I'm very happy with how we've been going," Cowan said.
"It's fantastic. We've got knowledge all around us now, which is something we didn’t really have in the past. We had guys like Tai McIsaac, but we just haven’t had that nucleus of a full frontrow and we are getting the benefits out of having that now for sure."
Cowan is glad that he spent the time at hooker both in games and by working on the throwing, in particular, at training so he has that extra string to his bow.
"It was a big learning curve for myself and the scrum was obviously a lot easier than the lineout," he said.
"I picked up a lot playing at hooker, but I'm very happy to be back at prop as well."
The Force have beaten the Stormers and Highlanders the last two weeks to finally be rewarded for their hard work and it certainly makes the sore bodies easier to cope with.
"Your body is definitely hurting at this time of the season, but we tried really hard to get over the line and now that we've got that monkey off the back the boys are working even harder at training and wanting it just a little bit more," Cowan said.
"We knew that we were close, but we had to make ourselves hurt just that little bit more to help us get over the line. The boys are a bit sore, but pretty happy at the same time now."
The Force now heads to Auckland to take on the Blues who have been one of the more dynamic Investec Bank Super 14 teams this season, and are smarting after a loss to the Stormers.
"Last week the Highlanders were massive against the Chiefs and even though the Blues don’t have Tony Woodcock there at the moment, they still have a very good scrum and it's just another challenge for us to put our best foot forward in to continue our form."
http://rugbywa.com.au/news/article,58010.html