Coming off a thumping win over the Sydney Stars, the Perth Spirit will look to increase their chances of making the National Rugby Championship playoffs this weekend against Queensland Country.
Providing the Spirit have a decent win, and other results around the competition go the right way, there is a chance of the West Australian side securing an away semi-final, most likely against the undefeated Melbourne Rising.
Spirit hooker Robbie Abel, who scored two tries against the Stars in Round 6, said the finals are a long-term goal.
“Everything is still game-by-game, but I guess that you look at where we are on the table and it’s definitely still a possibly, so it’s always a goal I suppose,” he said.
Commenting on last weekend’s performance against Sydney, Abel said the players are getting used to each other, and they must keep preparing into the next match.
“For the first ten minutes it was just a little bit of us getting used to playing together again,” he said.
“We had quite a different team for the last few weeks so we were just getting a few of the cobwebs out, but I reckon it should be fine.
“We’ll be able to tick over into the next week pretty well if we just keep preparing the way we have been and after that [first ten minutes] we managed to bring it back and did well, so we were pretty happy with that.
“With that game under our belt and just getting back into everyone playing together and having all the combinations that are going to probably be carried into this week.
“I think it’ll be a lot easier especially coming off a win, it’s always easier off wins like that.”
Regarding this weekend’s clash with Queensland Country at the Lark Hill Sports Complex, Abel said both teams will be up for the clash.
“All the teams have come in with a really strong mindset, especially the way the competition is, everyone’s trying to score tries and everyone’s trying to win games.
“They’ll be coming in pretty hard, especially this late in the season, and especially with trying to get into the semis and I suppose we are doing exactly the same thing.”
Luke Worthington
Roar Rookie
Well I have access to 2 players and 1 coach (all Perth Spirit) every week, so I could give that a go for the remaining two rounds!
Who Needs Melon
Roar Guru
Thanks for the article Luke. I think it may have been lost amongst a sea of others today. You know what would be good: A weekly "NRC Player in Focus" type article explaining the background of a lesser-known player, getting a bit of a view of what makes them tick and how they are finding the competition. I'm not suggesting that's what this article is nor that you yourself should write them - you would need some serious access to players to do that.