Crowd-pleasing Camels post another win
Wednesday June 17, 2009
Camels’ Hooker Al Ewan throwing into his lock at a line-out in the Western Plains Rugby Union match against Brewarrina at Ailsa Fitzsimmons Memorial Oval on Saturday.
The crowd at Alisa Fitzsimmons Memorial Oval were treated to some of the best rugby action seen at the venue for quite some time when the Cobar Camels met the Brewarrina Brumbies in Round 6 of the Western Plains Rugby competition on Saturday afternoon.
The 34-17 end result in Cobar’s favour was also crowd pleasing.
The Camels’ forwards provided their
backs with a tremendous platform to
work from early in the game, enabling them
to build and maintain the pressure on
their Brewarrina opposition through sustained and very positive phase play.
That allowed Bryce Rixon to crash over the line to post early points for the Camels.
After the restart, the Camels maintained their composure.
Sustained pressure in attack, under the direction of flyhalf Chris O’Hara, put yet another tight forward, Jarrod Marsden over the Brewarrina line.
Matt Low’s conversion took the score out to 14-0 in Cobar’s favour.
Low’s good service from the halfback position allowed O’Hara to unleash his backs with Daniel Howard, Will Dobbs and Justin Bliss running some great lines to give the Camels plenty of punch in the midfield.
The Camels’ dominant front row of Rixon, Steve Gillette and Al Ewan, backed up by Marsden and Andrew Schmitt, allowed two scrum feeds to be won against the head by Ewan which further compounded Brewarrina’s misery.
Their game also wasn’t helped by their keenness to kick the ball away nearly every time they managed to win possession.
The Cobar forwards continued to link well with the backs allowing a continuity of play which, once again allowed the Camels to build the phases and unleash Travis Schintler’s pace out wide to take the score to 19-0.
A few defensive lapses by Cobar after the restart allowed Brewarrina to play their regular brand of rugby, moving the ball from one side of the ground to the other to score under the posts.
Camels’ fullback Justin Schick, backed up his great game last week with a brilliant individual try this week featuring a chip, chase and regather to take the score out the 24-7.
The Brewarrina forwards were growing weary of the pounding they were receiving from the Cobar tight five, and requested that the scrums be uncontested.
This worked in their favour and they again crossed Cobar’s line totally against the run of play.
Cobar’s dominance at the breakdown, led
by the back row of Lachie Sullivan, Sam Baker and Scott Meadows, allowed another try for Schintler to extend Cobar’s lead to
29-12.
Local park ranger, John Hausier was the last Camel to score and a late try by Brewarrina wrapped up the match for a final score of
34-17 in Cobar’s favour.
In a week where the Camels were hit very hard by injury, it was pleasing to see many Camels keen to step up and fill the voids.
Best and fairest votes went to Ewan (3 points), Schick (2), O’Hara (1) and Gillette (1). O’Hara was Players’ Player.—contributed
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