Despite a second-half comeback the Cowra Magpies' charge towards finals is increasingly fraught with a 12 point loss to the Lithgow Workies leaving last year's grand finalists in seventh place at the end of the round.
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The Workies had completely dominated in the first half, going into the break 18 points up. Two quick tries out of the gates left the Magpies floundering at 36-6 in the opening minutes of the second.
But then an intercept try to Joey Bugg kick-started a fightback that brought them right back into the game.
Workies coach Graeme Osborne said the second half was a major lapse in concentration from the team, which allowed Cowra to lay on 24 points to bring the final score to 42-30.
"I think a lot of them thought, when we got to 42, they put the cue in the rack... and sat back on their laurels a bit," he said after Saturday's home win.
"You can't do that against a side that plays in grand finals consistently."
Osborne said a lag in the first half, which was noticeable in the team's defence, was ramped up in the second.
It would be a major talking point the week leading up to their next away clash against Oberon.
"First grade footballers can tackle, it's more about their attitude and their concentration," Osborne said.
Despite the second half, Osborne said there were plenty of positives to come out of the game, including scoring as much as they did against a side that played in last year's grand final.
He praised the performances of several of his charges at the Tony Luchetti Sports Ground.
"The area that excites me is that we've got plenty of improvement in us. That's the good thing about it," Osborne said.
"We've won the game 42-30 and we're probably playing [to] 50 per cent of our potential."
Cowra's captain Blake Tidswell said the team continued to be a bit lacking everywhere on the field, with Saturday's loss leaving the team two games out of the top five.
"If we could forget the first half, not too bad... In defence we kept letting them get such a big roll on and couldn't come back from it." he said of the team's inconsistent performance.
"Second half, we did fix that a bit. We seemed to have a lot more aggression in the middle and come out on top defensively and played off the back of that... If we could figure out how to get that into 80 minutes, we'd be right."
Tidswell said the team had been focusing on structured play, but may need to start "just playing what came", as they did in the second half.
"We need to play 'heads up' footy," he said.
- LITHGOW WORKIES 42 (Brendon Van Veen, Jono Van Veen, Eli Felton 2, Greg Behan, Dan Bain, Tui Oloapu, goals Josh Howarth 7) def COWRA MAGPIES 30 (Caley Mok, Warren Williams, Joey Bugg, Blake Tidswell, unknown, goals Caley Mok 5)
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