WALCHA and Inverell sent ripples through the Central North competition one round out from the finals with upset away wins on Saturday.
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The Highlanders rolled the Bulls in a tight one 29-26 after scores were locked at 14-all at half-time, while the Rams clipped the Blue Boars 30-20 to hand them their first loss of the season.
“It's been a while since we've got a win out here,” Rams coach Barry Hoy said.
The win saw them leapfrog the Bulls into third and set up a blockbuster final round clash with Pirates, who compounded the Blue Boars’ misery by assuming the competition lead and with it, minor premiership favouritism. It's now theirs to lose. Before Saturday, it was the Blue Boars’.
The Rams set the win up in the first 20 minutes of the second half, wiping out a 17-8 half-time lead and pulling away to a lead they would never be headed from.
“I thought if we could hang in there the first 15-20 minutes of the second half, I thought we could come over the top in the second half,” Hoy said.
As it turned out they started the better in the second half.
“They were probably only in our 22 once in the second half,” he said.
“We had all the territory and controlled the ball well. A couple of times in the second half we string 12 or 13 phases together.”
They probably could have had a couple more tries. Two or three times they had tries disallowed for being held up or other reasons.
Hoy thought their fitness was a crucial factor.
“Our fitness allowed us to get over their forwards,” he said.
Once they did that, that freed up the space and time for the backs to work their magic. Not surprisingly he found it hard picking the points. Henry King was awarded the three and Simon Newton the two while Ross Fletcher and Thomas Hoy shared the one.
The Rams are with the win, assured of hosting one of the two elimination finals.
“This is our third win in the second round and we're building a bit of momentum,” Hoy said.
It's the opposite story for the defending champions. Saturday's loss followed two 25-all draws.
“The most disappointing thing for us is whether we finish first or second is out of our hands,” coach Nick Lennon said.
Lennon was at a bit of a loss as to explain how it went awry.
“Just mistakes at crucial times hurt us,” he said.
He gave one example when they were ahead by about four or five, and Jack Maunder made a great run. But the support wasn't with him and the Rams turned the ball over and “went down the other end and scored”.
“Walcha really when we made a mistake capitalised on it well,” Lennon said.
The frustrating thing from his point of view was that they did some good things. But then they'd just ruin it by doing “something stupid”, and as a result would end up 50m back from where they'd started from.
“We improved a bit at the breakdown from Moree and defensively there was a bit of improvement,” he said.
“We did well to hold them out. They had a lot of phases there at some stages.”
They were though a bit slow to react. Skipper Matt Schwager was their best, but they’ll be missing him for Inverell next week. He came off with about 16 to go with concussion. Mitch Cuell and Sam Kahl also had strong games.