Camels’ win over Gular their “best game in years”
Wednesday May 26, 2010
.JPG)
Camels’ halfback Tom Waters quickly gets the ball out of a scrum in Saturday’s Western Plains Rugby match against Gulargambone at Ailsa Fitzsimmons Memorial Oval. Waters scored a try for the Camels in their classy 31-5 win.
.
The Cobar Camels Western Plains Rugby Union side played one of their best games in years to defeat
Gulargambone for the first time in four years in Saturday’s Round 4 match of the Western Plains Rugby competition at Ailsa Fitzsimmons Memorial Oval.
A confident and yet-to-be-defeated Gulargambone side turned up at Cobar for their first away game of 2010 expecting to continue their streak.
The Camels, still seething after their capitulation in their last game against Coonamble, were looking for someone to take their frustration out on and from the warm up it was apparent that Gular were in for a tough day.
The tone of the day was set early, with strong running from Camels’ fullback Justin Schick and locks Ian Hartog and Tull Mitchell.
Number 8 Netava Tagi was hitting the ball up in tight early in the game, allowing the Camels forwards to get the whole team on the front foot before unleashing their potent Camels backs.
Forwards Clint Fennamore, Blake Dunne and Sam Baker were everywhere on the field.
Their potency was shown early with inside centre Chris O’Hara stepping his way untouched to the Gular line early to take the score to 5-0 to the home team.
Shortly after the kickoff Gular got another lesson in ‘Rugby 101’ with the Cobar side making good ground and plenty of hit ups, allowing halfback Tom Waters to provide great service for five-eight Jayden Martin to get on the front foot and unleash the men outside him almost at will.
Sustained pressure from the home side allowed one of the greatest things in the sport of rugby union—a prop scoring a try, with Cobar’s Chris Marshall having the honour.
An O’Hara conversion took the score to
12-0.
At the kickoff, Gular finally woke up and managed to pressure the Camels, with Gular’s forwards stealing a win in the a tighthead scrum.
A penalty to Gular shortly after had the visitors nearly breaking the Cobar defence, but it was great scrambling defence from the Camels’ Daniel Howard and Harry Vari that kept the visitors out.
Great clearing kicks by O’Hara succeeded in keeping Gular at bay.
Through good defence, the Camels were once again able to gain the ascendency and pick an opportune time to finally get one
over the Gular lineout, giving tighthead prop Steve Gillette a scorching 40m sprint down
the touch line, stepping his way past three
defenders to touch down under the posts,
delighting the crowd with two prop tries in the one match.
Another O’Hara conversion took the score to 19-0.
With the Cobar scrum missing 2008 and 2009’s best and fairest player, hooker Al Ewan, the Camels still managed to set up camp in the Gular half while under immense pressure.
More strong and straight running by prop Gillette helped send Travis Schintler on a streaking 20m run down the touch line only the be tackled just short of the try line.
Next story | News home
