Nigel Staniforth carried some heartache into the 2025 Blowes Cup season.

He and his Orange Emus had been beaten in the grand final in the previous three campaigns.

He was a player in 2022 when Emus gave up a 13-0 lead to go down by just two points to Bathurst Bulldogs .

After that match, the curtain fell on a glittering career, and the former Australian Schoolboys representative turned to coaching the club's first-grade outfit. As good as Staniforth's Emus teams were the next two years, they were no match for Bulldogs, and they conceded more than 100 points in total in back-to-back grand final losses .

The pain extended further than that, too.

In 2021, Emus topped the ladder for almost the entire season, only to have Cowra nab the minor premiership in the final round. That proved

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