Lachlan Slade is confident he and his fellow Team New South Wales cowboys can get the job done at AELEC on Saturday night and send the PBR Origin series to a decider in Brisbane.
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The Tamworth cowboy will be part of the 10-man Blues line-up hoping to restore some state pride after Team Queensland took the honours in last month's opening event in Newcastle.
Tamworth has regularly hosted PBR events since 2009 and Slade always enjoys the hometown support.
"You definitely have that home crowd advantage there," he said.
"They sort of get behind you a little bit more than most people."
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The 27-year old is no stranger to the winner's plaudits taking out the Tamworth PBR event back in 2013.
Last year he won the Origin series opening event in Brisbane, even if the blue wasn't necessarily a natural fit.
While born in Tamworth, Slade spent most of his childhood in Warwick and is an unashamed Maroons supporter in the league version the PBR event is modelled on.
But come Saturday night he'll be riding his heart out for NSW.
The Origin concept was introduced in 2019 and Slade said the rivalry between the cowboys is pretty strong.
"We're all good mates when it's not on but it gets pretty heated between the locker rooms," he said.
"I guess it's no different to the football, everyone plays together every weekend.
"But it's a different way to look at it."
Equal fifth overall in Newcastle, when asked where the team needed to improve, he said they have "to stay on more bulls".
"We sort of let that get to us last time and got too far behind to catch up," he said.
"Hopefully this weekend we can stay on all of our bulls and win."
He said the NSW team is "looking pretty good".
"The boys have all drawn pretty good. There's a lot of good match-ups and I think we should all be pretty confident," he said.
Of his own season Slade said it "could be better".
"It's getting there," he said.
"I've probably had more time off than most years, just getting in the swing of things now."
The action gets underway at 7.30pm.
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