A stirring second half defensive effort helped Albury Thunder to a gritty 24-16 win over Wagga Kangaroos in Group Nine rugby league on Sunday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The pair is expected to battle for fifth spot in the finals and while both scored two tries apiece after half-time, the Roos dominated extended periods of possession and territory.
"The defence is the thing I'm most pleased with, we turned it over a lot in the first half and they had a lot of the ball and once again they had a lot of ball in the second half, but we recovered well in defence," delighted Thunder coach Robbie Byatt suggested.
Quite remarkably, both teams had played just the four games heading into June with the same one-three win-loss record.
The slippery conditions meant it was never going to be a brilliant attacking game with kicks resulting in the first two tries.
The Roos scored after just three minutes when hooker Bowie Foster won the race for the ball and the home team responded after 14 minutes when hooker Kieren Ford grubbered the ball through for Mason Fuller to win the race.
Both teams made a stack of errors with their handling, but with only 10 seconds left in the half, Jackins Olam went a short blindside and was tackled a metre from the line, but managed to cleverly loop a left-hand pass to an unmarked Keanau Wighton.
On the back of a handful of inspirational runs by assistant coach Jon Huggett, the Thunder retained the ascendancy early in the second when clever halfback Paul Karaitiana noticed rep fullback Daniel Foley was standing deep and grubbered through the line with Fuller diving on the loose ball and finding Olams, who took Foley across the line after a 15m run.
And Olams set up another try for Wighton when he had only three metres down the blind and threw the pass to the winger, who dived over.
The Thunder made a mistake in the next set of six and the Roos spent the next 10 minutes on the attack before Foster finally snapped the strong defence from dummy-half with 13 minutes left.
Albury appeared to put the match beyond doubt when Byatt delivered a short ball to his brother Matt who barged across, but when the Roos received a penalty for back chat, Ned Cooper scored a typical modern day winger's try by planting the ball one hand, while being tackled centimetres from the sideline.
The Thunder had a host of good players, with Huggett carting the ball forward, prop Sam Collins produced a number of stinging tackles, while fellow front-rower Nathan Darby impressed after coming off the bench.
Olams scored a try and set up two in a tight clash, Karaitiana showed why he spent time in Canterbury's lower grades with his pace, while Ty Fletcher was terrific at fullback.
"We made a heap of mistakes throughout the game and in the wrong positions on the field, with wet weather footy you need to hold the ball and when they drop the ball, capitalise," Roos' prop Brayden Sharrock offered.
IN OTHER NEWS:
The league now has a bye.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark https://www.bordermail.com.au/
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter: @bordermail
- Follow us on Instagram @bordermail
- Follow us on Google News.