Narrabri captain-coach Lachlan Cameron was feeling double the frustration following the Blues’ loss to Oxley Diggers at Manilla last Sunday.
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Not only did his side give up a 24-point lead but he had to watch the late drama unfold, and Diggers pull away for a 54-38 win, from the sidelines.
He was forced off with about half an hour to play with what was later diagnosed as lateral ligament damage and a calf strain.
He had missed their loss to North the previous weekend after picking up an ankle injury playing for the Greater Northern Tigers on the Saturday and was in a moon boot at the start of the week.
“I wasn’t confident early in the week but it got better and better,” he said.
The game was in the balance when he left the field, with the Blues holding just a four-point lead.
They had started brilliantly, piling on four unanswered tries in the first 20 minutes.
Their first was a bit fortuitous, with Cameron snatching up a grubber kick from Diggers five-eighth Chris Hunt.
As the defence closed on him, he floated a lovely ball inside to five-eighth Jamie Sampson, who burnt the chasing defenders.
For the next 15 minutes they attacked with vigour and precision, with Sampson forming a lethal combination out on the right with Jed Smith and Zac Buckley.
“We stuck to the structure we were aiming for,” Cameron said.
“We stuck to the plan and executed it really well.”
“Jamie directed the troops around well, and was really finding some good space.”
But then it all started to unravel.
A turnover inside their 22 led to the Diggers’ first points and, from the kick-off, they were in again and the momentum started to swing.
“We sort of never really recovered, never got back into the sets that we were playing,” Cameron said.
The ball control that was a feature of that first 20 minutes fell away and they started slipping off tackles.
“We were just missing one on one tackles and letting them get a roll-on,” Cameron said.
“Guys like Chris Hunt, you give them space and they’ll murder you.”
The two traded the lead in the second half and, until just over five to go, there was only 10 points in it at the most.
Cameron felt they weren’t helped by a couple of crucial calls that “didn’t go our way”.
It wasn’t so much the calls but the timing of them.
The most critical was the binning of Sampson with just over 10 to go.
He was one of their best. Smith was also good in the centres.
“He hasn’t really played much in the centres before,” Cameron said.
“Lewis Varty was also good up the middle.”