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Home / Northern Advocate / Sport

Woodward enjoying Blues super ride

Northern Advocate
8 May, 2011 10:59 PM3 mins to read

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It's good to see people revelling in a new job and Blues assistant coach Bryce Woodward certainly fits into that category.
Anyone concerned he might be taking on a basket case of a job when he was appointed to replace Shane Howarth at the beginning of the season can now rest
easy.
With five games to go in the regular season the Blues top the table and a spot in the playoffs is theirs to lose.
The team have been hit hard by injury but they are still winning the close ones and have won seven games in a row.
Winning ugly perhaps - as in the 17-11 victory over the Hurricanes on Friday night showed - but that's the sign of a championship team and Woodward's enjoying the ride.
"I don't for one moment think that there won't be some speed bumps in the journey this year but at this stage I'm enjoying being here, it's a competitive high-performance environment and I'm trying to add what I can to it and loving it really," he said.
In the past few years the Blues have been known for their talented line-up that has always just fallen short of their potential and Woodward believes that is now changing.
"A good side is starting to develop, we've been showing signs of that in the last few weeks when we've been willing to dig in and do what we have to win the game," he said.
It could have been snatched away from them in the last five minutes on Friday but for some critical tackles. Particularly the one that saw the ball spill forward out of Tyson Keats hands - ending the chances of a Hurricanes win - a moment that relieved some of the tension that had been building in the coaches box.
"That was a nervous few minutes at the end after Lachie [Munro] missed that conversion [and failed to give an eight point buffer] and it quickly become heart attack material in the box," Woodward recalled.
The coach isn't about to make predictions about how the rest of the season will unfold but he knows they are in a good position with five matches to go before playoffs.
"[Blues CEO] Andy Dalton said the good thing about where we are is that our destiny is in our hands and he's right, if we don't make the playoffs then it's our fault, nobody else's," he said.
Woodward feels lucky to have joined such a proficient team of coaches at the Super-15 franchise and said their success is a joint effort led by the experienced Pat Lam.
"Pat is an astute coach and puts in a huge amount of work and he's bringing what he's learned in the past two years to the team now and I'm enjoying working with him, Liam Barry and [scrum coach] Mike Casey," he said.
The Blues take on second-placed Reds at Brisbane in an important match this weekend.

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