By Liam Cook

UQ’s No.10 is confident his side is building towards its strongest form ahead of a crucial fortnight.

“We’ve got a good balance in our side and we’re looking pretty good going into the back end of the year,” Twidale told Rugby News.

The Students currently sit second on the ladder, four points clear of the third placed GPS and three points in arrears of Wests.

This weekend presents as an opportunity to cement another finals birth for the reigning premiers.

Ensuring September action won’t be easy against a Sunnybank side that inflicted one of UQ’s four losses to this point of the year.

“That’s certainly a bit of motivation for us and we’re back at home so I know everyone’s looking forward to that,” Twidale said.

“Sunnybank present a unique challenge because they like to throw the ball around and throw a lot at the defence.

“Defensively we’ll have to be on and there’s no more motivation we need than the fact we need to win it to make finals so I’m sure we’ll turn up.”

The Students will have their tails up following a last gasp win over Bond on the Gold Coast last Saturday.

Contests against quality sides like Bond are instructive experiences for UQ, says Twidale.

 “When you verse a good side like Bond, and Easts even the week before which we won by a point, it highlights areas you are lacking if anything.”

“It’s good to be able to look back on those games and see where you could’ve probably made it not go down to the last minute.”

After shifting to ten in last year’s premiership winning side, Twidale has once again been central to his sides success this season.

The flyhalf was unavailable when UQ produced a rare form slump with two wins and two losses through rounds six to nine.

Helping to steer UQ back its best form since returning in round ten, Twidale says he has again enjoyed taking up the No.10 mantle this season amongst some new faces.

“It’s a different set of challenges, you’re directing a team around a lot more and in the game management side of things I’ve had to step up to the plate.”

“It’s been a really enjoyable season of footy, there’s lots of young guys around the side and we get along really well so it’s good fun.”

Some of the younger faces at St Lucia have recently returned from representative honours and provided great impact for UQ.

“There are some youngsters coming in like Mac Grealy, Lukas Ripley and Kalani Thomas.”

“Kalani had a year at Super Rugby and has come and really developed his game. He’s a really good game manager and leader now. He had a really good finals series last year but he’s definitely taken his game to another level.”

The prospect of achieving back-to-back premierships has not consumed the Students mid-season but rather acted as an end goal, Twidale says.

“Maybe at the start of the season when we sat down and looked forward to this year it was definitely something we acknowledged.”

“Having the opportunity to go back-to-back, it hasn’t been done I think since the very early 2000s.

“It probably hasn’t been discussed in recent weeks as much but it’s definitely a goal, nonetheless.”

The playmaker from Toowoomba says fulfilling that goal will stem from a renewed defensive focus for the final stages of the year.

“We can probably be better at being able to defensively keep teams out from our own try-line and turn them around more often than not.”

“If we can tighten up defensively our attack will come.

“We’ve got a lot of good individual talent around the side, we just need to pull it all together.”