SUNDAY’S Tier 2 preliminary final was an all too familiar story for Gunnedah this season.
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They had all the possession and all the territory but just couldn’t convert it into points.
It cost them a spot in the grand final, with Inverell winning through to face Walcha 21-7.
What made it all the more frustrating for the Red Devils’ supporters was that for a quarter of the game they had a man advantage, and for the last five minutes a two-man advantage.
Yet they couldn’t make it count.
“I’d hate to see the stats on how much territory and possession we had,” Red Devils co-coach Tim Walsh said.
“The effort and the application were there but the execution was terrible.”
The opportunities were there and on several occasions they did look threatening, but the play just fell down at that crucial moment.
Early in the second half, for example, they knocked on about 10m out from the line after marching 30m up the field and holding the ball for 10-12 phases.
Another time Josh Leys made a great 20-30m charge up the field but tried to get the miracle ball away and ended up passing to an Inverell player.
Then when Highlanders skipper Chad Makim was yellow-carded they turned the ball over from the scrum.
“We just gave away too many turnovers,” co-coach Nik Hannaford said.
Not just through knock-ons but at the breakdown, and the lineout, although, in fairness, both sides had their problems there at times.
The early signs were good, with Peter Henderson scoring inside the first five minutes.
Then after they’d dropped the ball over the line after opting to press for the try from a penalty, the Highlanders went 100m up the field and scored.
“We should have taken the points,” Hannaford said.
“Instead of being 7-all it would have been 10-nil.”
He felt that was the biggest turning point of the match.
For the Highlanders it was the sending off of Tala Vea.
It left them down to 14 for the last 20 minutes and defending a seven-point lead.
“But they all just stepped up,” coach Simon Clarke said.
He said that was a game they would have lost earlier in the season .
Not least for the fact that they were a man down but they were prone to last 20- minute fade-outs.
That wasn’t the case on Sunday.
“Towards the end we did what we had to do,” Clarke said.
While they didn’t have a lot of ball, they were composed when they did, their pilfer was excellent and they made sure they were wrapping up the Red Devils players so there was no chance of an offload.
“I was really impressed with our forwards and the backs’ defence was great,” Clarke said.
He lost count of how many tackles Makim made.