With the Mid North Coast Rugby Union season closing in on its finals series, the Kempsey Cannonballs host Port Pirates this weekend in a match which could decide second spot on the ladder.
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The Cannonballs are coming off a 59-14 victory at home against the Hastings Valley Vikings, while the Port Pirates had a 31-28 loss to Coffs Harbour on Saturday, July 8.
Kempsey's win makes it three bonus point victories in a row and the 15 completion points they have collected has rocketed them to within one point of second place with a game in hand.
In a back-and-forth match, it was Kempsey's backline that did all the damage with their impressive outside centre Stephen Blair and their fullback Corey Gale both scoring hat-tricks.
"Stephan was great again and Corey Gale was phenomenal at fullback as always," Kempsey Cannonballs coach Fuller said.
"I thought Loma Ligavatu probably had his best game for us on the weekend. He was absolutely dynamic when he had the ball.
"Our forward pack also worked really hard as well."
Fuller said the team's discipline let them down in areas during the game, a habit the coach is trying to eradicate from their playing style.
"Overall, we were really happy with our performance, but there's still a lot of room for improvement," he said.
"There were some things that I thought we could've executed better, our discipline let us down at times.
"We kept letting them off the hook with silly penalties. It's something that we've been talking about all year that we've really got to sort out."
With just three rounds remaining, they need only one point to clinch second position heading into the finals. The Pirates were 47-21 victors the last time the two teams played.
Fuller said they will need to improve from their round four meeting if they have any chance of a top-two finish.
"They were too classy when we played them last time," he said. "I didn't think we matched them physically. I thought it was probably the only game this year where a team really out-muscled us physically.
"So, that's an area that we will have to focus on this week."
While Fuller is cautious about the team getting ahead of themselves as they approach finals, he is under no illusion that the upcoming match against the Pirates is an important one to win.
"This becomes a really important game for us in terms of wanting the top-two finish," he said.
"We just want to keep chipping away and ironing out little bits of our game. It's just about concentrating on gradual improvement
"We are on the right track, but there's still different bits of pieces that we've got to fine tune."
The Cannonballs host the Pirates at home on Saturday, July 15.
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