In the words of Blayney Bears co-coach Alex Pettit, the side got a bit of a touch up in their 46-6 loss against the undefeated Mudgee Dragons in Mudgee last Sunday.
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The loss was even greater than when they first met at King George Oval in Blayney in the first round. That match only had a 10 point deficit with Mudgee racking up 28 points to Blayney's 18.
Pettit said that because of the nature of the side's shift workers, the reduced numbers and Joey Hobby's ongoing recuperation meant that the trip to Mudgee was going to be a difficult one.
"We only went over with 16 players and some of them hadn't even had a run with the side yet," he said.
Just like the first round match injuries took out some key players, but with no one to replace them.
"We lost three of our key starting forwards and had to play the last 15 or 20 minutes with only 13 players," Pettit said. "It wasn't much fun."
Pettit though acknowledges that despite his numbers, Mudgee are a great team this year.
"They have plenty of numbers, young blokes are keen and they go really hard," he said.
Thankfully the side is still in the top four, sitting below Mudgee, Bathurst Panthers and Lithgow Workies, and this weekend at home will be facing Orange Hawks who are dealing with their own numbers problems at the moment.
"First grade has been dealing with a lot of injuries and they have been pulling them up from reserves," Pettit said. "It's been making it difficult for both sides."
Due to the new competitions now in play Mudgee and Blayney have already met twice this year and are yet to play Panthers, St Pats or Lithgow.
With those clubs still an unknown entity, Pettit is positive that his side will remain in the top four.
"Hopefully we'll be able to get that one bad game out of our system and keep on going, but the stop-start nature of the draw does make it difficult, but we can wash our hands of Mudgee for now and wait until the finals where we're going to meet them anyway," he said.
The Blayney Bears and Orange Hawks match will be held this Sunday at KGO from 12pm. The Bears versus Cowra Magpies match scheduled for the long weekend has been moved to the following weekend.