U18s Bulls Ready To Turn It Around Against Rams
Despite suffering a tough loss in their opening Laurie Daley Cup encounter on Sunday, Riverina Bulls Under 18s coach Ben Mott is confident his side can turn it around in their next clash against the Western Rams.
After leading 24-12, the Bulls suffered late heartache in round 1with the Monaro Colts fighting back to score three late tries to earn a 26-24 victory.
Mott admitted that the result was a hard loss to swallow, but is hopeful his players can learn a lot from it.
“It was a very tough loss,” Mott said.
“We just lost our way around completions and defending tough after we hit back to go 24-12 up. We put the cue in the rack a little and thought we would cruise through.
“Unfortunately we ran out of steam on top of that.”
This Sunday the Bulls will take on the Western Rams who are coming off the back of a 28-16 loss at the hands of the Dragons.
Coach Mott says the Rams will present another strong challenge.
“It will be a very tough game again on Sunday in Grenfell against Western Rams,” he said.
“They’re always really well drilled and play hard footy so we’ll have to improve our defence hugely and complete much better to get the victory, but I have no doubt we’ll take that improvement from round 1.”
The Riverina Bulls teams are made up of a combination of Group 9 and Group 20 players and despite not having great numbers, Mott says his squad have been putting in the hard yards at training over the last few weeks.
“We don’t have huge depth in numbers, but our core looks very solid and all the boys are working very hard and are raring to go,” he said.
“The overall effort and vibe has been super positive.”
As with many squads, the Bulls’ preparation for the competition was interrupted due to COVID, but Mott is not using any excuses as his side seeks their first win of the competition this weekend.
“Unfortunately, patches of our preparation were quite disrupted due to COVID and some positive cases in the squad, but nobody let it get the better of them and everybody stepped up wherever needed.
“To miss our last trial game against Western when all the trials were cancelled due to COVID protocols wasn’t ideal, but we’ll have no excuses on that front as we’ve done all we can to make up for it.”
Mott coached the same players in the Under 16s age group and their current manager, Terry Cronin, was manager then also. Whilst the Bulls have only nine in their squad from that year, Mott says they have picked up some very handy additions and have some more than capable Under 17s in their as well.
“Terry and I are both excited to be back with this group as they’re very passionate and have great ability,” he said.
“It’s my forth year coaching at Bulls and it’s been a great experience and one thing we definitely need to do better is start fast and hit the ground running.
“We have been guilty of taking a while to come together, but we’ve tweaked some things to try and combat that and training looks great at present.
“We will be working hard to in-still into our squad the importance of working hard for each other while competing on every play and doing all the little things to the best of their ability.”
Mott says he and Cronin have great belief that their side is very capable and have ambitions to be highly competitive.
“The same age group won three from five when they were in Under 16s and we will be striving to match that, if not improve on it,” he said.
“Our goal is to make finals, which would be a great achievement considering the quality of opposition we will face."
The Bulls face the Western Rams at Henry Lawson Oval at Grenfell at 10am on Sunday.