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The season isn’t yet half over but there’s a lot on the line when second-placed Palmyra take on fifth-placed Perth-Bayswater at Pat O’Hara Reserve on Saturday in the Rugby WA club competition, sponsored by KWIK Crane and Transport Hire.
Following a healthy recruiting program in the off season, Palmyra has enjoyed a meteoric rise from the wooden spoon in 2008 to be firmly on track for a place in the finals in 2009. But early wins over Kalamunda and Nedlands haven’t been quite the achievements they once were, and the Melville club won’t really know where it stands until it has faced heavyweights Perth-Bayswater, and Wanneroo the week after.
Palmyra lost in the dying minutes of their game against the season’s other surprise package, Cottesloe, three weeks ago but bounced back to impressively defeat the competition front-runner, Associates. With both Perth-Bayswater and Wanneroo vulnerable through a run of injuries, the timing could not be better for Palmyra to set up a winning path to the finals in September.
For Perth-Bayswater, the final weeks of the draw were supposed to be a cruise home. They had all their tough games set up in the early weeks, facing Nedlands, Kalamunda and Wanneroo in the first four weeks. But Nedlands' and Kalamunda’s fall from grace makes the Morley club's loss and a draw from the set something of a disappointment, and now the mid-season wobbles have set in and the men in black have slipped to fifth on the table after their surprise defeat by an under-rated University team last week. This leaves Perth-Bayswater facing the competition’s top two teams to wind up the draw, and they will be desperate to stay in touch with the top four while carrying a worrying sick list.
Despite the setbacks, Perth-Bayswater first grade coach Lex Wilson is confident of the team’s ability to adapt.
Wing Nathan Hunt and hooker Ash Murphy return to the team, and lock Jock Stanley is back from suspension but backline general Sam Moon has a neck injury.
“The guys we’ve brought in will step up,” Wilson said.
“We’re going in as underdogs and we realise that, but it’s our home track and we’ve got a point to prove.”
Wilson was disappointed with the team’s performance against University but hoped to get the season back on track with a return to form against Palmyra.
“It’s been a week of home truths,” Wilson said.
“We just want to execute our plays and play the style we know we can. We want to play what we train and not stray from the pattern.
“We’ve fallen away in the last couple of weeks and we want to put that back in place.”
Wilson gave credit to Palmyra for their achievements but maintained his focus was on his own team.
“Paly are playing a good brand of rugby, they’re adventurous, they’re a proud club and they’re up there again, which is good for Western Australian rugby,” he said.
“But we’ve gone away from looking at the opposition at the moment; we just want to reinforce what we’re doing.
“We want to be proactive, and we haven’t done that recently. We just need to pick our whole game up across the paddock.
“We’ve taken games for granted and it’s cost us points.”
The second big game of the weekend pits 2008 grand finalist Wanneroo against competition leaders Associates at Kingsway with similar importance riding on the outcome. Third-placed Wanneroo will be desperate to recover from their shock 51-5 hiding by dark horses Cottesloe last week, while Associates need to improve after a lucky escape against Kalamunda at Hartfield.
In other games, Kalamunda must forget the heartbreak and build on a positive performance against Soaks last week when they face a developing Wests-Subiaco at Rosalie Park, while a shell-shocked Nedlands face another potential nightmare when they meet a steadily improving University team at McGillivray Oval. Finally, Cottesloe will be set on continuing a three-game winning streak that has seen them storm into the top four when they host Rockingham at Harvey Field
http://rugbywa.com.au/news/article,55861.html