POLDING will defend its State PSSA Rugby title in Armidale today and there will be plenty of regional interest in its fortunes.
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The Polding side includes talent from St Xavier’s Gunnedah, St Joseph’s Warialda, St Mary’s Scone, St James’ Muswellbrook and Holy Trinity Inverell, and will tackle Combined Independent Schools in the final and deciding match.
It will be only their second appearance in the final.
“We’d never made the final until last year,” manager John Nugent said.
They came out and won it.
After not conceding a point on the opening day, they found the going a bit tougher yesterday but came through unscathed, beating southern Catholic counterparts MacKillop 22-12 and then Hunter 38-19 in their semi-final.
“We started off really well and got a bit of a lead,” Nugent said.
“Hunter fought back for a while but we were able to consolidate.”
The game against MacKillop was the first time they’d really been tested but they responded well.
They listened to what the coaches wanted and executed the game plan.
Nugent said they made sure the forwards controlled the ball and made space for the backs.
The local boys have all been playing well, he said.
Their opponents today, CIS, have been just as an impressive, even more so in some respects.
They didn’t have a point scored against them yesterday and thrashed Sydney South West 45-nil in their semi-final after earlier beating Sydney North 26-nil.
The home side had a tough day but really manned up and was in both its games.
First up was Sydney West, who had flogged them 57-nil the day before.
“Just after half-time it was 5-all,” North West coach Tim Bartlett-Taylor said.
“With seven minutes to go the Sydney boys ran away with it.”
They won 24-5.
Next up was South Coast.
“We were winning 14-nil but lost 24-14,” Bartlett-Taylor said.
He said they played all over South Coast in the first 10 minutes but after that the game got away from them.
“We got a bit over-confident and made a couple of silly mistakes,” Bartlett-Taylor said.
Generally though, it was a much better effort than the first day.
The boys really “fronted up”.
“We changed a bit of a structure and did a couple of different things,” Bartlett-Taylor said.
Things like putting more people in the ruck and spreading the ball wider.
Rowena’s Charlie Radford was again outstanding at breakaway.
“He was stealing the ball and tackling,” he said.
Darryl Sharpley (Moree East) scored tries in both North West’s games, with Logan Griffiths (Tamworth Public) scoring the other.
Griffiths was good again along with Bailey Wilson (Quirindi), AJ Pretorius (Tamworth), Deuchar Dight (Yetman), Kosta Sakellariou (Tamworth) and Dougal Coleman (North Star).
