Walcha set up Pirates rematch

Then they faced Pirates, the side they will tackle in the decider next Saturday after securing their spot with a hard-fought 36-20 win.

“That was our aim [to make the grand final],” co-coach Barry Hoy said.

“We’ve got nothing to lose now.”

They were straight onto the attack on Saturday, Simon Newton putting them ahead 3-nil after only a couple of minutes.

The precision that they have shown in recent weeks however wasn’t quite there, the Rams making uncharacteristic mistakes and fumbling opportunities. 

“We were a bit flat,” skipper Will Fletcher conceded.

The Red Devils in contrast played with a real vigour, and chipped away to lead 6-3. 

Their time in front was short-lived though.

Barely a minute later the Rams finally got a play to stick and outside centre Ed Cordingley did the finishing.

They were in again not long after through Cordingley’s centre partner Pat Keen, Newton adding the extras to turn a three point deficit into an 11-point lead.

But the Red Devils rallied again, and after a sustained passage of attack on the Rams’ line Will Archer scored after the half-time bell to, with the conversion, close the gap to four points at the break. Lifting the visitors, Hoy said it was “probably not such a bad thing in hindsight”.

“That was just enough to stir them up at half-time,” he said.

The first half was as he expected a “tight contest”.

“We had to get on top of their forwards,” he said, adding that he thought their fitness might start to come into play towards the end of the half, which it did.

Jolted by that late try, the Rams dominated the early part of the second half, throwing wave after wave of attack at the Red Devils. The Red Devils managed to hold them out until number eight Sanimo Navatu was yellow-carded.

The Rams took the opportunity to settle things by opting for the penalty to push out a seven-point lead.

Not long after Newton scored to give them a bit more comfort.

He then put them beyond two converted tries with his third penalty of the game.

“I was pretty happy to see that penalty goal go over to put us 15 ahead,” Hoy admitted.

Jack King then sealed it for them, the Red Devils scoring a late consolation try through Darrell Morrison.

Noted more for their attacking play, Hoy thought it was the Rams defence that really set it up for them, pointing to that period just before half-time.

“We held them out for eight or nine minutes 5m out from our line,” he said.

As they so often are the backs were the masterminds for the Rams, but Hoy did single out prop Ross Fletcher.

“Defensively he was strong and he ran the ball strongly,” he said. 

He also helped stiffen the scrum.

“The scrum held long enough to get the ball out, which is what we needed”, Hoy said, adding that the lineout though was “terrible”.

Red Devils coach Jason Waerea thought Navatu’s sin-binning was a turning point. There was still only four points in it at that stage.

“We lost the ascendancy in the scrum,” he said.

The middle part of the first half was also decisive.

“That middle 13 minutes it really turned on us. We had a few calls go against us in key positions and they turned that into points,” he said.

That wasn’t to take anything away from the Rams, their superiority in the backs again the difference.