Ben Browning, Max Findlay and Travis Cohalan will share a milestone in Sunday's elimination final

Browning will be one of a number of CSU's squad looking to put last year's 69-point elimination final loss to North Wagga behind them when they get a second crack on Sunday.

The Bushpigs have qualified for a second straight finals appearance on the back a fourth-placed finish, their best home and away result since 2002.

CSU were blown away by North Wagga last year but are determined not to make the same mistake when they take on East Wagga-Kooringal in this year's qualifying final at Maher Oval.

"We probably put too much pressure on ourselves last year," Browning said.

"We probably thought a bit much into it.

"I think if we just stick to our guns, obviously we want to train the best that we have all year, which I think that we're doing, but we don't want to get overwhelmed.

"After having one year in the finals, it's enough for a lot of us to realise what we need to do, we need to get our preparation right and once we've done our preparation right, we know we've done everything we can and we play the best we can."

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Browning, from Jerilderie, arrived at CSU at the beginning of 2021.

He, Max Findlay and coach Travis Cohalan will all bring up their 50^th game for the Bushpigs in Sunday's final.

Browning and Findlay have not missed a game since they arrived at the club and the 50-game milestone is a unique one at CSU.

"We've played 50 straight. We all started together," Browning explained.

"It's not as much of an accomplishment as at other clubs but at the uni, it's pretty special.

"To play ones from the start for three years is rare enough in itself but (50 straight) I guess a bit of luck's involved and doing a good pre-season helps. I put it down to Trav's work at times as well."

Browning has thoroughly enjoyed his time at the Bushpigs.

"It's been great for me. I've made some great mates, Max is one of my best mates, I'm really close with Trav and many others," he said.

"We've built something really nice over the past three years, which is pretty good.

"Trav's great, he does a great job, it's not always easy with such an inexperienced group but I think the boys have bought in a fair bit over the last three years, we've built something special, particularly over the last three years when we weren't overly competitive for a long period there."

In his third and final year of an agricultural business management degree, Browning could be in the final stretch of his time at the Bushpigs.

Either way, he would love for CSU to get on a finals roll.

"It would be awesome to make a deep finals run," he said.

"We're looking forward to the clash against East Wagga, that's for sure.

"We're the first to admit that we were outplayed a couple of weeks ago at Gumly but we've hit the track pretty hard and hopefully put ourselves in the position to make a deep finals run."

Cohalan is rapt the pair have reached the mark together.

"It's been a really good journey with Max and Ben, in particular, but there's also another fair few guys that have had injuries and haven't got to 50 at the same time as Max and Ben but we all started out on that journey together," Cohalan said.

"It's a really good achievement by Benny and Max, they epitomise the way we want to play and the way I like to coach and that's bringing high work rate, high effort and try to get the best out of yourself at every training session and every game.

"I'm really proud of Ben and Max to be able to clock up their 50^th game. Playing 50 games is a bigger achievement at CSU than it is at any other club and I'm really happy for Ben and Max that they've been able to achieve that and to do it together in a big final on Sunday makes it even better."

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