PIRATES put on a wet-weather clinic in the second half to fend off a tenacious Barraba at Ken Chillingworth Oval on Saturday.
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As they did against defending champions Narrabri the week before, the Rams really took it to the home side and at half-time there was nothing in it, a late try to five-eighth Sam Collins giving Pirates a 14-7 lead.
Then the rain came and, after absorbing some early pressure in the second half, the home side worked their way on top and to a 40-14 win.
The forwards did a lot of the legwork, the wet weather forcing them to keep things in a bit tighter.
“We pick and drove well in the wet weather and seemed to get in behind them,” Pirates coach Mat Kelly said.
Most of their tries came after several phases of picks and drives, drawing the Rams’ defence in.
They had a contingency for the wet weather.
“We knew the rain was coming,” Kelly said.
“We had prepared in the warm-up to shorten up our lineout and our game in general.”
It allowed them to play the game on their terms, which they weren’t able to do in the first half.
The first half was a real arm-wrestle, with the Rams – as Pirates had expected them to – coming out strong.
Pirates struck first, through half-back Nick Pearson, about 15 minutes in but the Rams hit straight back, Jeremy York chasing through a kick from Ben Withers.
Both sides missed penalty opportunities to take the lead before, in the shades of half-time, from a scrum about 5m out, Collins shaped to go left but stepped back inside the defence.
It was a bright end to a frustrating half for Kelly.
They got caught in the grind with the Rams at the breakdown, which led to turnovers and stagnated ball.
“We seemed to correct that in the second half,” Kelly said.
They really took control of the game in the first half of the half, running in three tries in 15 minutes to pull away to a 33-7 lead.
The Rams never stopped trying and got some reward for their effort in the final minutes with Withers darting over but the home side had the final say, with Hayden Griffiths crashing over for his first try in first grade.
It was still another encouraging display from the Rams and going into half-time they felt they were right in it.
“The game did get away from us in the second half,” coach Nick Bomford conceded.
“We’ve only got ourselves to blame.
“We didn’t change our style of game.”
With the rain, they needed to play a tighter game.
“To Pirates’ credit, they outmuscled us and played a smarter game,” he said.
He thought Will Robinson, Lou Vollebregt and Luke White were their best with Moodie, Andrew Wynne and Ben Goodman getting the nod from Kelly.