WILLIAMS: STEP UP AND LEAD

Pride coach calls on seniors to steer the ship

NORTHERN Pride coach Ty Williams has applied the blowtorch to his senior players while simplifying his players’ roles as they seek to turn around a horror early season run against a premiership contender.

The Pride have won just one game of their past six, with a 28-0 loss to Tweed last week just the fifth time they were held scoreless in history.

It sent the Pride tumbling down the ladder to 12th, where they are already in danger of losing pace with the top eight.

Williams said he would roll into Saturday evening’s Barlow Park clash with Sunshine Coast Falcons with the same squad he named earlier this week, but called on his senior players, led by but certainly not limited to cocaptains Chris Ostwald and Jayden Hodges, to step up.

“I want to see my leaders lead, that’s open and honest,” he said.

“That’s the key area for us moving forward. Key personnel need to step up, put their hands up. That’s not only my captains, that’s guys who have had 50-plus Cup games or have had some NRL experience, and us as coaches as well.

“We need to fulfil those roles and do them to the best of our potential.”

Ostwald started at hooker last week then slipped into a roaming role when Hodges came onto the field.

It is a tactic which worked last season and something we could see more of in the next few weeks.

“(Ostwald) covered the ground pretty well, defensively he worked hard,” Williams said. “He was pretty burnt by the time he came off. I think he had a good 60-minute stint there.

“Hodgo needs to compose himself and make sure he’s orchestrating our team around the park, being good at that. That’s something we continue needing from him and Ossie.”

“Ossie gives us the energy, line speed and contact.

“He’s a bit of a terrier in that aspect, he likes to get into the physicality, so that’s an option for us.

“But it depends on the game, if we’re getting burnt through the middle or we’re not completing our sets, you know Ossie is going to burn pretty quickly because he puts his heart and soul in it.

“We need to be careful on how we utilise that.

“If the game plan is working the right way, we’ll look to go down that path.”

The message throughout the week has been to focus solely on the job he’s asked the players to do.

By simplifying the game and taking it back to what the players enjoyed about the sport, there’s hope it will encourage a positive response when they take on the Falcons.

“The main thing is to enjoy ourselves,” Williams said. “I spoke to the boys all week about it. They know their jobs, and they need to do that to the best of their ability.

“Training has been good this week. We’re as per program, we won’t get Cowboys allocations.”

Kick-off is at 5.30pm.