Team spirit drives Will

Pride’s metre eater rapt to move forward

WILL Bugden would just about run in front of a truck to earn a spot in the Northern Pride team each week but that’s because he knows he’s not the only one.

The backrower moved to Cairns in the off-season to take up the club’s Cowboys trainand-trial deal and has returned to the Intrust Super Cup showing he means business.

Bugden has lived up to his marquee status as the best metre eater at the Pride and third among forwards in the competition in the opening five rounds, averaging a remarkable 139m per game, but it’s still short of his own lofty expectations.

“I want to do better every week if I can, so that’s probably the main goal. 150m is not small but if that’s your minimum target, that’s not bad,” he said.

The 23-year-old might have missed his mark in the past two games but there’s no question about the commitment of “The Brute”, who has stepped up his defence as required on the back of advice from his dad Geoff, who played for Newtown, Parramatta and represented NSW.

“My old man sort of said to me if you feel the game’s sort of going against you just focus on defence. In the last couple of games, a few times there I’ve had to dig in and focus on defence and the rest will come along with me,” he said.

Bugden said throwing himself at the competition each week was the least he could do to show his respect to Ty Williams for handing him a taste of the NRL, which seemed a long way off two years ago at Wentworthville Magpies in western Sydney.

“I was at a wealthy club where players go to retire and cash cheques and it was a bad atmosphere to be around,” he said.

“I moved back home and started playing for Tweed Heads and just sort of found my love for the game again if you like and I’ve just gone from there. I think I just got around better people. It’s not a very good vibe sometimes in Sydney.

“When I moved back to tweed it was just 20 blokes like me fighting each week for their spot, loving the game, and you come up here to Cairns and it’s exactly the same thing, same feeling.

“You’ve got blokes here who will run in front of trucks for their spot.

“It’s unreal to be around that.”