The NSW Country Eagles made it three from three to start their National Rugby Championship campaign with a thrilling two-point win over the Melbourne Rising at Tamworth Rugby Park on Sunday.
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The Eagles had to dig deep with the Rising storming home, but much to the delight of the big crowd, the majority of which were supporting the Eagles, they held on for a 32-30 win.
Allegiances were in some pockets split, with former Pirate Mick Snowden wearing the nine for the Rising.
Fellow Pirate junior, and Waratahs prop, Paddy Ryan led the Eagles and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of playing again in Tamworth.
“It's just been a fantastic weekend and Tamworth's really turned it on,” he said.
“I'm so proud to be from Tamworth.”
The win made it all the better.
“I thought it was a tough game, It was a good country game of footy,” he said.
"We probably ground it out a little bit. We probably fell off a little bit with our physicality in the second half and they came home pretty strong.”
“But like I've said a few times, you don't have to write a story or draw a picture, thankfully it goes down as a “w”, and we'll take that and move onto next week against the Rays.”
The Rising enjoyed the early momentum, but after repelling them and bombing a couple of couple of opportunities, the Eagles struck on 20 minutes with hooker Tolu Latu crawling his way to the line.
Virtually from the kick-off they were in again, five-eighth Andrew Deegan exploiting a bit of space on the left on a kick return and linking up with fullback and Gunnedah product Angus Roberts. Roberts burst away down the touchline before turning the ball back inside, where Sam Figg picked up the scraps to, with the conversion, extend the Eagles’ lead to 16-nil.
Rising five-eighth Ben Meehan sliced through the Eagles defence to get the visitors on the board, but tries to Ned Hanigan, and Jake Gordon saw the Eagles pull away to a 32-8 lead at half-time.
Like they did in the first half, the Rising started the second half strongly and got early reward with half-back, and Snowden scoring under the posts.
It was the start of the Rising resurgence with the likes of Tom English and Jack Debreczeni starting to assert their influence and with just under 18 to go, winger Taiso Silafai-Leanna cut the difference back to 10.
The Eagles had had a couple of chances of their own but just couldn't finish them, and with five to go saw themselves down to 14 with Glen Innes’ Alex Newsome sin-binned.
The Rising then closed to within two with just under two on the clock, with Rob Leota picking and driving his way over and were pressing after the siren, but the Eagles defence earned them a penalty for not releasing.
