Sitting in seventh place with seven games in the season remaining, the Cowra Magpies would be the first to admit they'd be hoping to be a little higher placed at this stage of the season.
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Besieged by injuries since before the season began, with the likes of Josh Rainbow retiring due to a heart-related medical condition, Jeremy Gordon's shoulder keeping him out of footy until the second half of the year, the obstacles were already going to be tough for the Magpies.
But the challenges kept piling up.
Blake Tidswell copped cartilidge damage to the hip, new recruits Matt Naden and Claude Gordon have both copped suspensions from the judiciary.
Josh Wright will be out with broken collarbone after last week's match, joining Jack Nobes, who is also on the sidelines with the same injury.
Aside from a three game burst where the Magpies racked up wins against the Lithgow Workies, Blayney Bears and Bathurst St Pat's, all of whom exist in the lower reaches of the draw, the team has struggled to show its best for a full 80 minutes.
It has left the team in a rough spot after 10 rounds, but if there's an upside in that fact it's, as assistant coach Steve Sutton noted last week, that the team hasn't yet played its best footy.
As it showed last week in the first half against the Hawks, the Magpies had plenty of opportunities to be further ahead at half-time, with a 6-4 lead flattering the second-placed Hawks.
But while Willie Heta's men showed grit determination to push back and keep Kurt Hancock's team scoreless during the second half, the split in the performance acted as a neat encapsulation of the Magpies' year to date.
Always competitive regardless of personnel, the Magpies' losses are continually a matter of minutes, of patches, rather than any definitive structural issues.
However, as they turn to a match against a side they need to beat to work their way back towards the top five - the Lithgow Workies - they can have the confidence of knowing that one of their best performances of the year came against Graeme Osborne's team, winning 40-0 in a demolition job at home.
While their Workies will be more difficult on their local deck, dispensing a struggling St Pat's with style last week, the Magpies will be buoyed by knowing they produced a full 80 minutes the last time the two sides met.
It's only a matter of time before the team, in conjunction with new recruits Claude Gordon, Naden, Lewis Dwyer and Logan Harris, finds its best footy, as last week's first half showed.
The only question that remains: Will this be the week?
The senior men's team will take to the field from 2.15pm at Tony Luchetti Showground on Sunday afternoon, with League Tag kicking things off for Cowra at 10.30am.
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