Blues hand Brothers a thrashing in 'vital' confidence boosting game

After falling short to Southcity last week, captain coach Zac Masters brought his side to Equex Centre fired up and hungry for a win.

Their first full game performance for the season, Masters is hopeful the win will be a much needed confidence boost for his side.

Strong performances across the field, with reliable plays on both sides allowed the Blues to move the ball in the smartest direction without hesitation.

Pleased with how they held their shape, Masters said strong individual efforts made the team's job as a whole easier.

"Our shape was pretty good playing off the back, or off the cuff today, both sides of the field were pushing up in numbers and creating opportunities," Masters said.

"It's always good when you can have everyone on the paddock ready to play some footy when they get the opportunity, and both sides were a bit of a danger, it was pleasing.

"We weren't too pumped up after the game, but it was good realising that what we speak about and the side that we think we are, we are able to do it, we just need to make it a bit easier on ourselves.

"Today we put an 80-minute performance in and showed we can actually do it."

Malik Aitken has been a standout all season and continued in good form, while centre Trae King was essential in setting up several tries, as well as crossing for one himself.

Masters hopes the youngster will take confidence from his performance moving forward.

Reflecting on their game preparations, he said the team knew a win this week was essential to any finals hopes remaining.

"We were really disappointed after Southcity last week, that was probably a game we should have won so then coming out today with a performance like that, it's probably something that we haven't done this year, put a full 80-minutes together," Masters said.

"It was nice to get a good win and give the boys a bit of confidence.

"We spoke about how vital this game was for us as a game that we could win today, after losing last week it was really important that we won today, if we lost it would have made it a lot more difficult for us to get that finals spot at the end of the year

"When you look at playing finals at the end of the year you better win those games you're expected to be winning."

After a tough start to the season, with three top sides away to open their campaign, Masters said finding rhythm now will be essential.

Despite the losses, he said morale has remained high and the players haven't let their heads drop.

Coming into a home game against Gundagai next weekend, he said the advantage to them shouldn't be underestimated.

"We had some tough losses, and the young fellas could have dropped their heads a bit heading into the rest of the season but the positivity has been great around training and games," he said.

"To get a good win like that gives them a lot of confidence going into the back end of the year."

It wasn't all good news though, with Jordyn Maher helped from the ground with a serious ankle injury, leaving for the hospital prior to the end of the game.

Masters said he didn't see the injury occur but expects him to be out for a while.