LAVINGTON Panthers combined some inspired play with a large dose of gritty defence to defeat Wagga Brothers 26-10 in their group 9 semi-final at Greenfield Park yesterday.
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The Border club ran in five tries and defended stoutly to win its first final in nine years and advance to next week’s qualifying final against Tumut, which defeated South City on Saturday.
Panthers started the game in stunning fashion with two tries in the first 10 minutes as the visitors struggled to even touch the ball.
First to score was centre Andrew West, who showed no signs of his knee injury as he crossed over in the corner following a series of crisp passes.
A Joey Williams 40/20 kick put the Panthers in attacking position once again and following another set of passes, Elijah Tipene scored in almost the same position as West.
It wasn’t until the 12th minute that Brothers got a full set of tackles to work with and the two teams soon settled into a gritty arm-wrestle that was to last for much of the match.
Panthers were forced to defend grimly late in the half and the Brethren cost themselves a sure try when the referee correctly deemed a forward pass.
It proved a costly error when Mitch Seaton scored with five minutes remaining in the half following some outstanding work by Adam Mroz who stood up in a tackle to provide the assist to the fleet-footed winger.
Staring at a 14-0 deficit, Wagga came out hard to open the second half and was quickly rewarded when Wayne Goolagong crossed over after just five minutes of play.
The parochial crowd sensed momentum was starting to swing to Wagga as Panthers repeatedly made fundamental errors but Williams used some clever kicks to momentarily relieve the pressure.
Mroz again found himself in the thick of the action when he chased down Glen Peterson and then Tony Pamatangi knocked Tim Lawler out with a bone-jarring hit to keep the Wagga club at bay as West limped from the field.
Andrew Illieff then created something from nothing at the halfway line to cross over in the 65th minute and in the blink of an eye the momentum had shifted back to the hosts.
Remarkably, Illieff was not finished and after a scintillating series of passes crossed over just two minutes later to seal the win as Williams showed his class with a tricky conversion.
Brothers added a late consolation try when Peterson crashed over with 10 minutes left but time ran out on any hopes of a miracle comeback.
