RUGBY LEAGUE: Despite more than a year of perfection coming to a screeching halt, Queanbeyan Blues coach Simon Woolford is confident his team can drag themselves out of the rut they're in to take out the second derby of the 2015 Canberra Raiders Cup season on Roos home turf and produce a solid end to the season.
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The Blues suffered their second consecutive loss in as many weeks after losing 46-18 to the Warriors at Seiffert Oval on Sunday, July 19, one of the major upsets of the season, after a shock loss to Goulburn the week prior.
The Warriors posted an early lead against the Blues, but the home side managed to claw back into the game, only trailing by a manageable 10 points at halftime, but a comeback was not to be.
"Lapses in concen-tration and a couple of intercepts and we gave away the game," Woolford said.
"It's a team game, but there needs to be some individual accountability."
Woolford praised the efforts of halfback Ryan Griffen (one try), but said the match was far from their best performance.
"We've had a purple patch since round four last season, but we've got ourselves into a rut these last couple of weeks," he said.
"We had guys coming and going with representative duties and we've had three or four poor weeks and that's showed coming up against better teams. It was realistic enough we were going to lull at some stage- given we were undefeated everyone was turning up to beat us."
"But we've moved on, that week's gone- I don't like losing, but is it going to be detrimental to our season? No. Fortunately we put ourselves in a reasonably good position for the rest of the season."
Anyone would think the Roos with a recent peak in form and six-straight wins would have the Blues a little worried, but Woolford said he looked forward to an "interesting afternoon" in Saturday's local derby at Freebody Oval.
"What's happened up until now doesn't matter," he said.
"If anything [two consecutive losses has] made the boys a bit more hungry at training and made them realise they can't just turn up.
"We've got three rounds to go to get back on track."
West Belconnen Warriors 46 (R McQueen 3, H Brown, J Baker, D Ewings, R Thomas, J Faketagoai tries H Brown 5 goals) def Queanbeyan Blues 18 (J Wheeler, R Griffen, K Sione tries C Wilkinson 3 goals)