CHARLES Sturt University (CSU) co-coach Travis Cohalan says the Bushpigs' number one focus is regaining consistency after being taught a couple of 'football lessons' at their past two outings.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The Bushpigs had the bye last week to reset after two disappointing losses.
CSU dropped from second to fourth in the space of a couple of weeks following disappointing defeats at the hands of The Rock-Yerong Creek (79 points) and East Wagga-Kooringal (50 points).
The Bushpigs will look to get back on track when they host Barellan at Peter Hastie Oval on Saturday but ladder positions and their fight for a finals spot is the furthest thing from their focus.
"I think for us it's not even worrying about top five or finals, it's about worrying about playing consistent football because we haven't been able to do that over the last eight quarters," Cohalan said.
"We went from playing our most consistent game of the year against Temora and winning that one by 40-odd points to having our two most inconsistent performances of the year against The Rock and East Wagga so it's just about getting back to playing the Bushpigs' brand of footy this weekend regardless of who we're playing."
CSU went into their past two games hoping to validate their premiership claims but fell well short.
Cohalan went as far to say they were taught a couple of football lessons.
"Look I think we've certainly been handed some very good football lessons by probably two of the three best teams in the comp," he said.
"I think at the moment there's clearly The Rock, East Wagga and Marrar are the three best teams and the ladder would reflect that so coming up against The Rock and East Wagga we were confident and we wanted to give a good acquittal of ourselves in both games but unfortunately we were unable to do that.
"We played okay I thought in some patches but by and large over the eight quarters of those two games we didn't acquit ourselves very well at all and full credit to East Wagga and The Rock because they pretty well blew us off the park on both occasions."
The bye came at a good time for the Bushpigs and was one requested by the club in the draw at the start of the year.
It's the middle of university holidays so the majority of the playing group have returned home.
"Tuesday-Thursday we normally have 55 to 60 for two grades training every week and then you get to uni break and that dwindles down to 25 to 30 for your two grades," Cohalan explained.
"We knew it would be a struggle period in terms of training attendance, this time of year for our particular club, which we understood, so I suppose the break's come at a good time in that sense.
"The good thing is the boys are all committed, 95 per cent come back and play both grades during this period so we're lucky that they come back on a Saturday and they do train at home with their home clubs on the Tuesdays and Thursdays.
"It's probably been a good chance to refresh, do some different things, get back to training as the one group rather than splitting into first grade and reserve grade like we normally do.
"It's come at a good time for a bit of a freshen up because after we played The Rock and before we played East Wagga, I think we'd played seven games in a row without a break so the boys were starting to get a bit tired and battle weary and did need the break."
Harry Robertson will be available for selection against Barellan after he returned from a calf injury in reserve grade against the Hawks.
Ollie Wortley (uni holidays) and Wayde Archibald (knee) are expected back the following week to face North Wagga.
