IT will take a Herculean performance from North Wagga this week if it’s to upstage a red-hot Collingullie-Ashmont Kapooka at The Crossroads Oval with five key players all sidelined through injury.
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They presently sit 2½ games outside the top four and will be without some of their most important players for the Demons clash this weekend.
Rod Shaw (broken collarbone), Chris Peddlar (thumb), Drew Woods (foot), Steve Barnes (shoulder) and Tony Albury (broken hand) will all be sidelined at least this week.
North Wagga has the bye next round and coach David Peiper was praying for a change of luck after the rest as they push towards a finals berth.
“We have been hit pretty hard at the wrong time of the year,” he said.
“It makes things very difficult but we just have to hope the guys that come in can do a job and the senior guys all have to play well.
“It won’t get any tougher than playing Collingullie this week, who are the form side.
“We just have to keep the pressure up against them and anything can happen.”
North Wagga has been inconsistent for the entire season and is yet to string two consecutive wins together.
Adrian Dowdell, Jamie Parr and Gavin Hofert have been superb for the Saints this season and will all need to have blinders if they’re to cause one of the upsets of the year against the Demons.
“They are a great side and are in really good form,” Peiper said.
“We just need to go out there and put in a really strong effort like we did against The Rock last week.
“We’ll use the bye next week to try and get a few blokes right and then we have another bye up our sleeve so we just need to battle through.”
In other matches The Magpies host Temora in a match it should win comfortably while Rivcoll travel to Marrar.
