The Platypi have suffered a Round 2 loss in a less-than-ideal start to their Blowes Clothing Cup campaign, but they've taken plenty of positives away from it.
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The Cowra Eagles dominated the first half to win 43-31 at the Cowra Rugby Ground on Saturday.
The hosts jumped out of the blocks, with two tries to Amani Waqabuli and singles to Garrizo Gonzarlo, Vilikesa Koilagi and Navitalai Bola ensuring that the Eagles put up a score quickly, leading 31-5 at half-time.
However, in the second half, the ledger levelled up quickly, with scores to Forbes' Adam Hall, Isac Stewart, Ben Kelly and Ben Powlay.
Coaching coordinator Phil Prior was pleased with the second-half resurgence, but lamented the early lapse.
"The pleasing thing is, last week we had that 15-minute lapse after half time, which didn't happen this week... It was those 20 minutes in the first half that killed us," Prior said.
"It's been the second week in a row that our scrum has been outstanding... today our scrum was much better then Cowra's but the scoreboard doesn't show that."
It was a situation that left Eagles co-coach Col Kilby both happy with the win yet happy to acknowledge there were plenty of areas where his team could improve coming out of the Easter break.
"You're always pleased with a win, [but it's] disappointing we only stuck to our structure for about 25 minutes," Kilby said.
"We had pretty good opportunist tries that came off with good vision from players, but at the same time, we took some poor options and put ourselves under pressure."
The co-coach, who mentors the first grade alongside Col Jeffs, said the amount of penalties the side gave away was also cause for concern.
"We'll look at not gifting the field position as we did, we gave a lot of penalties away and turned a lot of ball over in bad areas," he said.
Forbes will host the Bathurst Bulldogs at Grinsted Oval after the Easter break, while the Eagles will take on last year's Premiers, the Orange Emus at home, in a battle of two of this year's undefeated teams.
COWRA EAGLES 43 (Navitalai Bola 2, Amani Waqabuli 2, Garrizo Gonzalo, Jeremy Montgomery, Viliuesa Koilagi tries; Gonzalo 4 conversions) def FORBES PLATYPI 31 (Jarrod Hall, Nathanial Langilangi, Isac Stewart, Ben Kelly, Ben Powlay tries; Hall 3 conversions)