Cooks Hill looking beyond NPL finals frontier as race heats up

The former New Zealand captain has agreed to stay on for a third season at Cooks Hill after exploring an opportunity back home and considering an offer at Valentine.

"At the moment, I'm staying," Zoricich said. "I just feel like there's more work to be done there, and to leave it now would be a little bit disappointing, so I decided to take up the challenge again and see if we can improve on this season again."

Under Zoricich in 2023, Cooks Hill recovered from a slow start to finish on 32 points - seven short of finals. This year Cooks Hill are fifth on 25 - four points shy of the top five - but have only three matches to play. Their rivals for what shapes as a six-way battle for fourth and fifth place all have more.

Among those are Maitland (24 points in 18 game), who Cooks Hill host on Saturday (4.30pm) in round 20 of 22. They then play in-form Edgeworth (36 in 18) and ninth-placed Weston (22 in 17).

Zoricich was philosophical about their finals prospects, given they recovered from having just one point in their first five games.

"We had a very poor start to the season, which we thought may well happen," he said. "We were a bit short and had a tough four games, but the boys have turned it around and worked hard and we've managed to get to a good spot. But we've still got to basically win all three games to have even a sniff of sneaking into the top five.

"We've spoken about it and said it's a good opportunity, and if we can do it, great. If not and we fall a bit short, it's not too bad either."

They had four wins and a draw before having last week off.

"It was just a shame because we were on a bit of a run, but it was a good time to freshen up," he said. "Now hopefully we can do some damage."

Valentine (24 in 18), another side needing wins to stay in the finals hunt, were scrambling to find a healthy line-up to host Lambton Jaffas on Saturday (5pm) after a COVID outbreak. Coach Adam Hughes said Zach Waddell (injured) and Jordan Gu (overseas) were out and several others were in doubt.

Jaffas (46) have dropped to second behind Broadmeadow (48) but have a game in hand. Coach David Tanchevski said Riley McNaughton and Reece Papas (suspension) return but Jimmy Oates (work) was out and Nikolai Topor-Stanley (ankle) was another week away.

At 2.30pm, Edgeworth host bottom side Lakes and fourth-placed Olympic (30 in 18) are away to New Lambton (14). On Sunday (2.30pm), Broadmeadow host fifth-placed Charlestown (29 in 17), while Weston welcome second-last Adamstown.