Tout thinks he is in his prime, the NSW Country selectors think so too

The Riverina Bulls regular was elevated into the Country team alongside three other Group Nine talents.

A Gundagai junior, he said it's an exciting opportunity to step his football up to another level.

"It's a massive privilege to be selected for Country, not many guys from the Riverina get to do it, especially from Gundagai," Tout said.

"It's my first time playing for country, so I'm very excited.

"I'm 27 now, so in the peak of my football career, I've played Riverina for a couple of years now, and played decent enough to make that side.

"We made the Country Championships final last year which probably helped as well, but I think it's a culmination of things and a bit of luck as well."

With several years of Riverina representative experience, and time in the Ron Massey competition, Tout believes he has set himself up well for a good show in the Country v City game later this month.

Joining Tigers teammate James Morgan, he said having an experienced mate along for the ride will help too.

Albury's Lachy Munro and former Cherrypicker Josh Ayers also got tapped on the shoulder.

"I'm very much looking forward to representing with [Morgan]," Tout said.

"He's a great player and he's obviously been there before so hopefully I can lean on him as well for what the experience is going to be like."

Though the club was unable to register teams in the under 16s or under 18s competitions this year, Tout hopes that his and Morgan's selection can help inspire the next generation.

With eyes to play Gundagai first grade from a young age, he said seeing more Group Nine players selected at high levels shows how strong the first grade competition remains.

"When I grew up in town, all me and my mates wanted to do was just play first grade for Gundagai," he said.

"It might have been a bit short sighted, but that was the truth so hopefully the boys can have a look at what our first grade team has been able to do over the last five to ten years and know if they want to play a good level of footy, they can do that.

"It's a great club and it's a really good feeling to be able to represent Gundagai."

NSW Country plays NSW City on May 18 at Leichhardt Oval.

While the Sydney-based Tout is unavailable for selection in this weekend's round five game against Young, he is confident the Tigers have what it takes to win again.

Handing Temora their first loss of the year last week, Tout anticipates tough conditions at Alfred Oval on Saturday.

Predicted rain adds to the complexity.

"Young obviously has a pretty big forward pack so I'm so I imagine we'll be trying to hang tough through the middle and just stick with them as long as we can and hopefully we come over the top of them in the last 20 minutes of that second half," Tout said.

Luke Berkrey is also unavailable for the game after sustaining a shoulder injury last week.

Despite the outs, Tout has confidence in his team.

"With Luke Berkrey and myself out, we're going to have to control our middle, they've got a pretty big forward pack, especially the middle three, so we're going to have to try and control the ruck and if we can get on some equal footing there, then I think we've got the outside backs to score a few tries and hopefully beat them in the end," he said.