Home Crowd Advantage
By DAVID ROWLANDS
NORTH SHORE TIMES - 28/5/2004

The fact that “Our house” has become a crowded house is to the advantage of North Sydney’s Jersey Flegg team.

To reduce the wear and tear on Aussie Stadium — which is home to the Roosters, Rabbitohs and Waratahs, as well as hosting last Friday’s Socceroos-Turkey soccer inter national — this weekend’s match against the Tricolours has been switched to North Sydney Oval for 7pm tonight.

“The boys are looking for ward to it,” said Bears coach Josh White, a former Wests, Canterbury and Illawarra half back. “Not many of them have had the chance to play under lights on a Friday night.”

Having the game moved to Bear Park is a welcome advan tage for them, but White re mains under no illusions about the task that confronts his gradually improving outfit be cause the Roosters are the only side in the three grades — including the NRL to be unbeaten.

“It’ll be a big challenge and a good test for us,” he said.

The timing in attempting to end Sydney’s 11-match winning streak couldn’t be better, as almost the entire Roosters’ squad has already played this week, either at a Schoolboys knockout tournament in Newcastle or in Wednesday night’s NSW v QLD under-19s game, which was the curtain- raiser to the State of Origin at Telstra Stadium.

“They could be ripe for the picking,” claimed White.

“No one’s unbeatable and they haven’t been put under much pressure this year, so that’s what we’ll be trying to do.”

Part of the recent workload taken on by tonight’s visitors has been to act as opposition to the NSW Origin side in simu lated practice matches.

While the Norths rookies revel in the rare opportunity to be top billing tonight, the club’s Premier League side will still have to make their way to Aussie Stadium on Sunday with the aim of making amends for last Sunday’s 52-6 thrashing at the hands of Souths.
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