Lowly Cutters bulk up for Blackhawks
THE Townsville Blackhawks are preparing for a vastly improved Mackay Cutters side when the North Queensland rivals take the field at Jack Manski Oval this afternoon.
The second- placed Blackhawks thrashed the Cutters 56- 12 in the opening round in Mackay, with outside backs Michael Carroll and Jonathan Reuben both scoring doubles.
Townsville has won all three games between the two sides played at Jack Manski Oval, twice by more than 40 points, and six of their seven meetings overall, with one draw.
But Mackay has added some class for today’s encounter with Cowboys premiership- winner Lachlan Coote to play at fullback after being left out of the NRL side.
Coote is a veteran of 164 first- grade games and brings needed experience to a Cutters outfit looking to drag themselves off the bottom of the ladder.
Mackay has some strong Cowboys allocations including recent NRL debutant Mitch Dunn and Blackhawks coach Kristian Woolf expected a much closer contest than their season opener.
“They’re going to come here very hungry and that usually leads to a really strong performance,” Woolf said.
“They’re quite well off there with their Cowboys allocations at the moment. That certainly gives them a lit- tle bit of class and it’s probably the strongest side that they’ve named for a few weeks.
“There’s a rivalry there, being Mackay and Townsville, and they’ll certainly come up here with a point to prove and it’s going to make it a challenging game for us.”
The Blackhawks are coming off an impressive 32- 0 win over the Easts Tigers last weekend, but Woolf felt they were still patchy in the second half and he wanted to see a more complete performance today.
“The way we defended was very good ( in the first half) and we had really good control with what we did with the ball,” Woolf said.
“I just thought we fell away with both a little bit at times in the second half. Our clean- up area is finding longer periods of time that we can be at our best.
“We’re obviously pretty happy with what we did last week, but the positive is we’ve got a lot of improvement in us still. ”
The Blackhawks will field an unchanged side today with Shaun Hudson to again partner Jaelen Feeney in the halves and Woolf believed the childhood friends were developing a nice combination.
“Those two blokes are getting better and better together. I’m really happy with how they’re coming along,” he said.
Kick- off is at 6pm.