Last Saturday, Charles Sturt University Orange had just seven players fit enough to take the field before they forfeited their match against Condobolin.
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A run of injuries to key players brought the casualty count to nine, which worsened an already difficult situation at the club.
These injuries added to a string of CSU students leaving the team earlier in the year, which had the GrainCorp Cup side struggling for numbers.
CSU Orange head coach Dan Lamb suggested many of the students didn’t like the team’s training regime, causing a lot of them to leave.
“A lot of them walked away at the start of the season because they didn’t like the intensity of the trainings,” Lamb said.
This gives the Aggies a different look than in previous years, with the bulk of their players coming from outside the university.
Although CSU will enter this Saturday’s clash as underdogs, Lamb was optimistic about his squad’s chances with the inclusion of some fresh faces.
“We’ll have 17-22 players this weekend and we’ve got some new, young forwards too,” he said.
The Aggies have started strong in many of their games this season but poor second half performances have led to a lot of convincing losses.
Lamb praised his side’s first-half efforts and knows it’ll take a full 80 minutes to overcome the Pies.
“Our first 20 minutes have been unreal,” Lamb stated.
“We’ve just shut off and we’ve gotten lazy towards the end of games and we can’t do that this weekend because they’re a strong side all-around”.
Molong have moulded a lot of its strong performances this season on the back of a massive forward pack, which is complimented by Matt Hobbs.
After losing to Molong in round three and seeing what the Magpies’ strengths are, Lamb listed Hobbs as a player to be weary of.
“Last time we played them he annihilated us and kept stealing the ball,” Lamb claimed.
“We need to look out for Will Oldham and Mitch Brown too”.
The CSU Orange Aggies will host the Molong Magpies this Saturday at Ron Gordon Oval, from 3.15pm.