Aggies’ focus still on finals

After battling to make premier division, Aggies are in danger of missing out on finals after going down to Waratahs and Tumut.

The university club now must start upsetting some of the more fancied teams if they have any hope of making the finals.

Albury, Leeton and Griffith will be their opponents for the final three games of the season and coach Nick McCarthy hasn’t given up hope they can get out of the tricky situation.

“We’re still in a reasonable position because we aren’t too reliant on other results,” McCarthy said.

“If we can get a couple of outcomes we’re still in with a chance.”

"We haven’t written our season off yet, we are just taking it a week at a time.”

Needing to finish in the top five to qualify for the finals, Ag College are four points adrift fifth placed Tumut.

They had the best chance to book a finals berth against the Bulls on Saturday but once again fell in a close loss.

Failing to convert any of its three goals was part of the problem, as the Bulls claimed an important four-point win.

Ag College faces a tough trip to Murrayfield on Saturday and McCarthy is looking to take advantage of any opportunity that comes their way.

“It’s been the way of our season but we haven’t been able to capitalise when we’ve been in those games and it was our fourth loss by less than 10 points," he said.

“We enjoy the challenge of playing against Albury and enjoyed playing them earlier in the season.”

McCarthy said it was a frustrating day for the club on Saturday but didn’t think they were too far off the mark.

“I thought we played some pretty good rugby for reasonably large periods of the game, we just had trouble converting our tries and that was the difference,” he said.

“Our forward pack was great our line defence was outstanding for the majority of the game.”

Albury enjoyed a 31-7 win over Aggies at Beres Ellwood Oval earlier this season after the game was halted for 40 minutes after Tom Dunstan was heavily concussed.

McCarthy is looking for his side to play more consistent football, especially when making decisions under pressure.

The battle of the forwards will be key if Aggies are going to limit the chances of the Steamers' strong back line.