This Sunday Warren Williams will be hoping that history is on his side when he dons the nember 3 jersey for the Cowra Magpies in this year's Group 10 grand final.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The last time Cowra won the competition on home turf was 1992 and his uncle Wilfred Williams scored the final try in the famous victory against Bathurst Penguins also wearing the number 3.
Captain-coach of the 1992 winning team, Greg Clements said this year's competition has reminded him of 1992.
"It's similar circumstances, the year before 92' we had a lot of young local fellas, just like last year when they found it hard to be consistent.
"But we got a few older blokes back with experience like Peter Martin, Wilfred Williams and myself which is like Tim Holman and Jeremy Gordon this season, Steve Sutton has done a great job and they have recruited well," he said.
Clements admitted that his team was not expected to make the grand final let alone win it, which again could be compared to this year's team.
"Confidence grew towards the end of our season and we were lucky enough to get a home grand final after winning our semis, and then we went on to win the grand final.
"We were in all three grades back then, there was a great crowd."
Another similarity is the fact that Wilfred's nephew Warren will be wearing the same number jersey worn by the explosive centre. Warren agreed it will be a special moment.
"Myself and Joe [Williams] were only talking about it the other day, he [Wilfred] also played in the 1996 grand final at home but they lost to Blayney Bears," Warren said.
"It's a cool statistic, I don't remember watching him play back then though,"
Greg Clements went on to say Wilfred was an extremely good player.
"He had a reputation of being a hard bugger, he was fit and lightning fast," Clements said.
"Not many people wanted to take him on. Back in those days in the opening minutes everyone was trying to get into each other so he was handy to have," he said.
Watching Warren come through the Cowra Magpies ranks, Clements says there was a bit of a similarity when Warren was in the 18s.
"Wilfred was a lot more explosive, Warren was a man before his time in the 18s and terrified the opposition. He had more speed back then though.
"But when we won the premiership in 1992 Wilfred was probably about 31 and he was still one of the quickest in the competition," Clements said.
Warren has had a stellar year this season scoring 10 tries in 15 matches to come in sixth on the top try-scorers list for 2014.
Having injured himself against Orange Hawks, he missed the final regular game of the competition before returning in the first week of the finals against Mudgee and then starring a week later against Bathurst St Pats, leading his team to victory.
"In patches [I've been happy], I got this injury late in the season which has given me the cranks."
With the grand final only just around the corner Williams is confident the Magpies can repeat the efforts of Clement's 1992 team.
"I'm keen, very keen.
"I am definitely [confident], if we play like we did two weekends ago and stick together we will do it easy," he said.
