Cootamundra stayed in the thick of the finals race with a crucial win over Kangaroos at Les Boyd Oval on Sunday.
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The Bulldogs turned around a disappointing month, where they lost three of their four games, to take a 32-18 victory.
Assistant coach Aaron Byrne thought it was their best performance in the last six weeks.
“Pretty much our season was on the line and if we didn’t get the two points today we would have slipped too far out of the reach of making that third or fourth spot,” Byrne said.
“It was probably our best performance for six weeks.
“We’ve spoken about the same things over and over again for a long time and they finally got put into place.”
The Bulldogs completed their sets better and had a marked improvement in discipline.
The two teams met try for try in the first half but when captain-coach Glen Butrriss put Jake Goodwin under the posts seconds out from the break it gave the Bulldogs a much need lift in momentum.
After taking a 16-12 scored the next two tries and despite Hayden Jolliffe getting one back Cootamundra responded once and Goodwin sealed the win with seven minutes remaining.
Cootamundra are still outside the top four due to their poor percentage but have the same number of wins as both Gundagai and Junee above them.
Their percentage won’t help them in the run home, and with that in mind Byrne is looking for another big performance when they tackle Brothers after the week off.
“We are well aware our percentage isn’t real flash and we need to win a good portion of our games to make the four but today was a good start to being there,” he said.
With the split round Cootamundra will travel to Wagga on July 22 before games against Junee (away), Tumut (home) and Temora (away) to finish the season.
Byrne said they need to win at least three of those but believes the week off has come at the right time.
“I think it is the perfect time,” he said.
“We’ve had four games since the last bye so we can rest up and if we do make the finals work our way into some form heading into the finals series.”
Kangaroos are now two wins outside of the four and need to upset Southcity next week if they are going to remain in the frame.
They beat the Bulls earlier in the year, but have struggled to string good performances together and currently sit in seventh place.
Kangaroos then tackle Young, Temora and finish the derby clash against Brothers.