GAME ON: Battling Cougars keeping Illawarra League afloat

The Cougars head to Dapto Showground this week looking for their first win of the season; first win in a couple of seasons in fact. A last-gasp draw with Helensburgh last season was the closest they came to bringing two points back to Ziems Park.

There was fresh hope ahead of this season when the club added NRL veteran Jarrod Mullen, only to lose the former Knights half to a shoulder injury weeks out from the beginning of the season. It was a cruel blow.

WATCH: Live stream Thirroul v Wests, Saturday, 3pm

This year, you won't find a single rival that's done it easy against the Cougars, despite some final scorelines giving that impression. Every side has left the park with bruises.

What shouldn't go unacknowledged, is that the whole competition owes the Cougars a debt of gratitude. For illustration of that fact, you only need to look at the clubs not there this year.

Helensburgh have dropped out of first grade for the second time in three seasons, while Cronulla Caringbah were one-and-done after one campaign in Wollongong.

Despite an unquestionably high quality of football, it leaves the competition vulnerable with only six teams. Losing another would be little short of disaster, so the Cougars fortunes remain as important as any of the top sides' ambitions.

It is far from easy being a rebuilding club in a competition so stacked. It's why the NSWRL simply must look at combining the Illawarra and Group Seven competitions in a conference system, but that's another conversation.

For now, you just have to admire a side that keeps on turning up week in week out to ensure the big guns keep leaving with bruises. Despite thus far doing it without a win, back-rower Kristian Williams says the desire to break through remains as strong as ever.

"It's always a matter of, getting out there and competing as hard and as much as we can," Williams said.

"If you just keep just keep doing that, results will happen. It's just been that last 20 minutes for us, just little small things, conceding a penalty or little errors that we're making.

"We are hoping to turn that around, which we will. I'm quite certain we'll definitely get a win this year, there's no doubt about that with the way the team's going.

"Our attitude's awesome. It's just a matter of everyone keeping consistent and working hard. We're just scratching for that win at the moment. If we can get that win, it's going to motivate us to keep working hard, keep rocking up every Saturday and keep playing the way that we play.

"Some of us feel pretty bad for the turnout that we have at home sometimes after a massive losing score against certain teams. It's not a nice feeling at all, but I feel if we get that win, everyone's going to get behind us and that's just going to drive us even further."

Having competed in most games this season, there remains just one result that was truly disappointing, a 50-6 loss to Dapto in Magic Round. It's the Canaries only win so far this season, and the Cougars will be looking to atone for that performance at Dapto Showground on Saturday.

"Being able to play at WIN Stadium, that's a time where you want to be able to get a win and where you want to compete with these teams," Williams said.

"Unfortunately, once we started conceding a couple of tries, we started dropping our heads, and we didn't pick it up after that. It wasn't all negatives during that game, we did a lot of good things, but obviously it didn't get the result.

"We're both at the bottom of the ladder at the moment so it'll be quite the competition this week and we're just looking to turn things around, get better with our effort areas and just looking to play basic footy.

"That's all we need to do, we don't need to go overboard. We just need to stick to our roles as individuals. We're put in these positions for a reason. If we just stick to what we do, we'll get a positive outcome."

Read more: Wests out to keep wins coming against arch-rivals Thirroul

It's been a tough two years, but the West Aussie has no regrets over making the shift east to pursue a league dream.

"Everyone wants to make it to the NRL, being a WA boy, we don't have that luxury over there," he said.

"It came to that point in my life where I needed to decide whether I want to stay there, just keep playing local footy and not get as far as I wanted to, or make that leap.

"There's some awesome players over in WA. I've been lucky enough to be able to play alongside them and play against them. It's pretty sad to see talented players go elsewhere because, unfortunately, opportunity runs out.

"That's one thing I don't want to do, I don't want to give this up just yet. I want to see how far I can keep pushing it and that's why I'm over here trying to pursue that dream.

"The season's not over yet. We're in the second half of it, so I'm looking just to play consistent footy and just play hard every single time. We're just trying to bring together a strong team, that brotherhood, and hopefully we can just bring something positive out of it."

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