WHILE generally giving his side a pass mark for the opening round performance, Old Bar co-captain-coach Mick Henry said the discipline is one of two areas that must improve when the Pirates tackle Taree City in the Group Three Rugby League match at the Jack Neal Oval..
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The defending premiers accounted for Wauchope 26-6 last Saturday at Old Bar.
"Our completions and discipline have to get better,'' Henry said.
"We gave away a few silly penalties - myself included - and we can't afford to do that against the better sides.
"We need to be a bit more clinical.''
However, Henry was happy with the defence.
"We only leaked one try and that was right at the start of the game,'' he said.
Henry added that there are a number of newcomers in the side this season and he expects they'll be better for last week's run.
"We should start gelling a bit now,'' he said.
The Pirates showed some initiative by scheduling a training run for Monday night.
"We heard there was a bit of weather coming in, so we trained on Monday instead of Tuesday,'' he said.
The Pirates were going to head indoors for last night's session.
Old Bar made it through the clash against Wauchope with no injury concerns. However, goal kicking remains a problem. The Pirates managed just one conversion from six attempts and while the majority were angled shots, Henry said the inability to turn four points to six has the potential to hurt the side in a close match.
"We had the same problem last year,'' he said.
Complete or don't compete
Meanwhile, Forster-Tuncurry coach Robbie Payne said the Hawks will have to complete if they are going to worry Port Macquarie in the second round game at Port on Sunday.
He said this in the wake of the 36-10 loss to Macleay Valley last weekend at Tuncurry.
"I watched a video of the game and our completions just weren't good enough,'' Payne said.
"We had 26 sets and completed just 11 of them - that's 42 per cent. We can't expect to win games by giving that much ball away. We had to do way too much tackling and we ran out of petrol.''
The Mustangs cut loose midway through the first half and trotted off at the break leading 32-4. Payne praised his players for the way they stuck to the task in the second half.
"We actually won the second half, which was pleasing,'' he said.
The Hawks have injury concerns, with centre Beau Lowry (back) and halfback Harry Reardon (concussion) the main worries.
Rookie rake, Will Clifton impressed against the Mustangs and could get more game time.
