Matt Brady capped off a momentous week with a starring performance as Gunnedah thrashed South West Robins 82-10 in their Group 4 clash at Scully Park on Sunday.
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Welcoming a son during the week, Brady crossed for two tries and orchestrated several others, and kicked 11 goals in a man of the match display.
The round highlighted the chasm between the top three and bottom three sides with North Tamworth and Narrabri both cracking the century and humbling their opponents.
The Bears mauled Wee Waa 104-4 while the Blues converted a 60-6 half-time lead against Collegians into a 126-6 shellacking to remain just ahead of the Bulldogs on for and against.
Gunnedah stamped their authority on the contest early against the Robins jumping out to an 18-nil lead mid-way through the first half.
From there it was a constant barrage from the Bulldogs, Dylan Porter’s scurrying effort out of dummy half for his second try making it 34-nil with eight minutes to go in the first half.
Porter was one of five players to find the chalk on multiple occasions in the 15 try romp with Rod Lawler and Bailey Lennox both scoring hat-tricks, and Brady, Porter and Aaron Donnelly bagging doubles.
Dogs coach Sean Hayne gave the sense after the game of being happy to get the points but not really satisfied with the performance.
“The first half was pretty good, we completed our sets,” Hayne said.
“But the second half we lost direction a few times.”
Too many times for his liking they turned the ball over early in their set.
It allowed the Robins to get a bit of traction, and while the Dogs defence was initially resistant the pressure eventually told, backrower Darrese Johnson pushing through outwide to give the home fans something to cheer about. He scored both their tries, his second coming courtesy of a 50m intercept.
Pretty happy with their defence in the first half, Hayne pointed to it as an area they’ll need to improve against the Blues next week.
“Our talk wasn’t where it should have been and we were a bit sloppy around the ruck,” he said.
Hayne also felt their line speed dropped off a bit at times.
Robins coach Shane Rampling was a lot happier with his sides second half.
“At least we gave a bit of a fight in the second half,” he said.
Mistakes were their downfall in the first half.
They dropped too many balls and made too many turnovers.
“Defensively the first four tackles we were competing but just that last couple we dropped off,” Rampling said.
That enabled the Dogs to get a bit of a roll-on.
“The second half we started to slow them down a bit in the ruck and didn’t let them get a quick roll on us as much as we did in the first half,” he said.
He said Zak Nigro, Daniel Hall and Johnson all had big games for them. Shannon Nean also defended well.
The smallest guy on the field he “was chopping their big boys down.”
They did it tough with six players backing up from reserve grade.