UNE Barbarians shrugged off a numerical disadvantage for a period to maintain its numerical advantage in the New England competition on Saturday.
Baa Baas picked up where they left off, resuming their campaign with a 21-10 win over St Alberts to maintain their hold on the competition lead.
It was a win they had to show plenty of character to achieve.
Late in the first half they were reduced to 13, and had to play two players down for about eight minutes.
But Albies were unable to take advantage and while they still went into the break ahead, Baa Baas took a lot of confidence from that and carried it into the second half.
In the wash-up it was probably where they won it.
"If they had scored even a try in that period we wouldn't have been as confident going into the second half," Baa Baas coach Dan Dooner said.
Instead they were only two points down.
Dooner said it was a good win, albeit a bit scrappy in the first half.
There was a lot of niggle and back chat, and penalties, the result of which was Nick Dooner and Joe Piddington both receiving yellow cards.
"When we went into the break I said to the guys 'we're playing good football and we're doing the right things we're just putting pressure on ourselves'," Dooner said.
"Basically we need to start again."
Which they did.
"We totally changed our attitude across the park at the start of the second half," Dooner said.
"We focussed on playing football and controlled the game from there.
"The forwards dominated and laid the platform for the backs."
They did well in the scrums and lineouts and dominated the rucks and mauls.
He said the Albies defence was good, holding them up on several occasions, but so too was theirs.
"We put them on the deck and forced a lot of errors," Dooner said.
Josh Coulthurst, Damien Biddle and Jarrod Carter all had particularly strong games. Ethan McCallister was also good on debut on the wing.
Albies coach Greg Wood described their performance as scratchy, although he had expected that after their three-week lay-off.
"We created lots of opportunities throughout the game but at the end of the day we were not able to hold the ball for long enough to exploit that," he said.
"When we were down their end we panicked, went sideways, threw the miracle pass."
