CQ Capras Coaltrain on track to derail Pride

A CROWD of about 3000 is awaiting the CQ Capras and Northern Pride in Emerald on Saturday and it’s set to bring the best out of “Coaltrain” Dave Taylor.

The former NRL behemoth has eased his way into the Intrust Super Cup but as the minutes have risen, so too has his confidence and a close-tohome game threatens to in- spire the matchwinning performance he has always been capable of.

“I think he’s pretty excited to go out there and I know he’s looking forward to catching up with family and friends,” Capras coach Kim Williams said.

“Hopefully that leads to a big performance from him.

“We’ve really benefited from him being here and he’s like another coach for me. His leadership at training has been exceptional and he’s putting in some good performances for us, his minutes are getting bigger and hopefully this is his best performance yet.

“I do rate the Pride forward pack highly, so it will be a good challenge for us.”

But Williams said Taylor would need to lead by example to match it with the Pride pack and hoped his side would return to the high-completion game that served them so well to start the season. When things have gone right, the Capras have been right in games and beaten Easts and Ipswich this season, ironically two sides who have condemned the Pride to back-to-back losses.

Pride coach Ty Williams said Taylor was on their radar.

“He’s a hard one to target, because he roams around the field a fair bit, he’s a big body, but we know we need to do a job on him,” he said.

“You can never take somebody of that calibre out of the game because he’ll pop up somewhere, so we just need to make sure when he is on the field we’re doing a job on him and doing our best to contain him and make sure he doesn’t have a massive impact on the game.”

Former Pride players Brad Lupi and Luke George have also been named to face their former club on Saturday.