St Albert’s resisted another determined challenge on Saturday to go two from two in New England Rugby Union.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
After staging a second half fight back to overcome Glen Innes/Guyra last week, the students held on to sneak home 18-15 in their grand final re-match with Barbarians.
The script was almost the exact opposite of the week before, with Albies leading at half-time and having to withstand a second half surge.
“Baa Baas played well and came back well and almost caught us napping,” Albies co-coach Chris Kelly said.
Kelly thought they always looked like they were in the ascendancy, but kept putting themselves under pressure by making mistakes trying to play running rugby in conditions not suited to that.
“We didn’t play smart when we should have consolidated some field position,” he said.
Generally though he and co-coach Ed Hiscox were happy with the performance.
“We grafted away well and when we did put their head down we played well,” Kelly said.
They were missing a handful of players with university holidays but the guys that filled in stepped up well.
Second rower Gus Smith continued his stellar start to the season, topping the points for the second successive game.
Alex Pay shifting from fullback to inside centre picked up two and Jono Green one.
“He was very good over the ball and made a pest of himself,” Kelly said.
Will Archer also went well again at five-eighth, while Brendan Power did a good job at half-back.
Barbarians coach Gary Wallace said it was an encouraging start for what is a new-look side.
Only four of the side beaten by Albies in last year’s grand final played on Saturday.
They were also still teaching players how they wanted to play in the warm-up.
“We haven’t been able to train as a team,” Wallace said.
As the three point margin suggests, he thought it was a pretty close contest and was unable to pinpoint anywhere the students really got on top of them.
“I think Albies played really well and deserved to win,” he said.
“(But) It’ll be good in a month or so to meet them again.”
One of their strongest points was their “good strong hard running”.
Mick Frost and Tyrone Waters were two of the leaders on that front.
Playing in the front row Waters had an “exceptional game”, Wallace said, producing some powerful runs.
Another debutant to impress Wallace was John Boy Quinlan in the centres.
Captains Will Chapman and Luke Heagney also played well along with Billy Hyde and Sam Gaites.
