“Relief,” Wooden said after the Kangaroos were forced to work hard for their premiership points, coming back from two goals down at half-time to beat CSU by 30 points, 15.9 (99) to 10.9 (69).

Wooden was a late withdrawal from the game after ‘tweaking’ a calf at training on Friday night, but got himself involved at half-time. 

“I was pretty frustrated, we got sucked in to scrappy footy which went away from our structures,” Wooden said. “But we addressed it, that if we kept going down that line, they’d roll us.”

In a sometimes spiteful encounter, the Bushpigs served it up to Temora as they chased a second straight upset at Nixon Park.

First, on the scoreboard, in an opening quarter shoot-out as the teams kicked five goals each to go to the break level.

Then with some niggle in the second. As a number of scuffles ensued and the game threatened to blow up, the home side found themselves off their game and down by two goals at half-time.

But Wooden was rapt they were able to turn things around in the second half.

Getting on top in the middle, Temora finished over the top of the Bushpigs, kicking nine goals to two. 

“Being our second game, I think the fitness kicked in and it was in the first five minutes in the third quarter that we got on top with our run,” he said.

“The Canberra boys (Sam Jensen, Kieran Shea and Daniel Hespe) they really stood up. Jenno and Kero in the middle they really got the boys going.”

Hespe had started in the ruck swapping with Anthony Atkin – who also had a big game. But he found a home in defence.

“He played well in the backline – he hasn’t played defence before and he went to full-back and he played well, running off them.”

Mark Breust and Luke Gerhard were strong across half-forward for Temora while Brayden Ambler again impressed on a wing, and Colby Poole kicked three goals. 

Tom Jeffery returned the same for CSU, while newcomer Liam Sweeney impressed, along with Rob Herzfeld and Dylan McPhail, as the Bushpigs more than caught the eye of Wooden in their first game following a round one bye.

“We only just got over the line. They’re a lot stronger than they were last year. I think they’re going to have a few wins,” he said.

CSU face a short turnaround with their next game against East Wagga-Kooringal scheduled for Friday night – under lights at Robertson Oval – to make the most of Daniel Kerr’s one-off appearance for the Pigs.

Temora have Friday night on the minds for a different reason… Wooden has canned any future training sessions the night before matches after suffering some tightness in a calf at their light run on Friday. The sessions had been planned to cater for their travelling players to allow them to get to some training.