2025 Peter Mulholland Cup live stream: Hills Sports High School v Westfields Sports High School, Round 2

While under no illusions of the ‘emotion’ tied to their round 2 Peter Mulholland Cup clash against Westfields, Hills Sports High is intent on putting its focus elsewhere. Watch it LIVE here.

While he admits Wednesday’s clash against rivals Westfields Sports High School comes with a sense of ‘heightened emotions’, Hills Sports High School coach Joe O’Callaghan is hoping his side can shift their focus into a strong start come game day.

Hills went down 28-18 to Central Coast in round 1 of the Peter Mulholland Cup and, after an almost five week wait, will get the chance to respond when they face Westfields in round 2.

The matchup will be available live and exclusive on KommunityTV from 12.30pm.

Reflecting on the main takeaways from his first game as coach, O’Callaghan said his side showed great fight but admitted they had clear room for improvement in a key area.

“I think the Central Coast game probably showed what I already knew a little bit about the group,” he said.

“We are young and inexperienced this year and you can do all the training in the world, but you don’t know until you get out on the park how it will go.

“I think in the first half especially, you could see a group in Central Coast who had a lot of boys having their second year of PMC and you could see that with the way they started the game.

“I think they shocked our group a bit, just with the standard of footy. But to the boys’ credit, you take goalkicking out of it, I was quite proud of them. They got it back to four tries apiece. Obviously, they scored right on the buzzer with that last try but I was proud of their fight and the way the boys put themselves back into the game.

Action from the Round 1 Peter Mulholland Cup clash between Hills SHS and Central Coast SC at Woy Woy Oval. Picture: Adam Yip

“But if you’re going to start that slow, we’re going to be up against it every single week. So that’s probably our focus going into this game, trying to start a bit faster now that we’ve seen what this level of football looks like.”

While the majority of the focus will be on that fast start, O’Callaghan admits that’s easier said than done when preparing for a game against traditional rivals Westfields.

“I think we’ve acknowledged it (the rivalry),” he said.

“Both schools need to win, it’s that simple. That’s where our focus has to be because whoever loses, I think they probably won’t be able to get out of the pool stage (of the tournament).

“I’d rather just focus on the process over any emotion tied to the game.

“I watched their first game and probably the most noticeable thing was that they are quite big across the park and that’s been pretty traditional of Westfield for a long time. They are full of talent (so that’s a challenge), but our boys are looking forward to the challenge.

“We’ve just got to find a way to manage that (emotion) and get back to just playing our brand and style of footy.”