Pirates coach Mat Kelly could again only admire his side’s ability to make a tough game seem comfortable after they overcame a tenacious Gunnedah at Ken Chillingworth Oval on Saturday.
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Looking at the 50-15 scoreline you could be excused for thinking Pirates were relatively untroubled, but that was far from the case.
The visitors took it right to them and were well in the game until midway through the second half.
But like the Crusaders did against the Melbourne Rebels the previous night, Pirates blew the Red Devils away in the last 20 minutes, Jack Shelton running a good line onto a short ball from replacement half-back John Buchanan to seal the win with just under five minutes remaining.
It wasn’t their most polished performance by any means, Kelly summing it up as an “ugly win”, but it was a win and for all that they didn’t do well, and the uncharacteristic mistakes, there were a lot of positives too.
“I thought we built out way into the game,” Kelly said.
They had to weather an early storm with the Red Devils coming out firing and enjoying all the pressure.
But while the endeavour was there the execution wasn’t quite and instead it was Pirates that were first to score, Tim Collins busting his way to the line from about 15m out.
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Discipline was an issue for Pirates in the first half and came to a head when Doug Biffin was sin-binned.
The Red Devils struck immediately, half-back Mal Frend working the short-side from a 5m scrum and finding winger Nathaniel Tavaga, who with his first touch of the ball got on the outside of his man.
Ben Goodman picked and burrowed his way over with one minute remaining in the first half to give Pirates a somewhat fortuitous 14-5 lead at the break with the Red Devils outenthusing them.
“They wanted it more than us and were ready to go,” Kelly said.
After addressing a few things at half-time, discipline and first-up tackles top of the list, Pirates showed their intent early Shelton bursting through and crossing for his first just a couple of minutes in.
The Red Devils hit back, Tavaga juggling the ball a couple of times but managing to hold onto it after some crisp hands through the backs.
But from there the momentum was with Pirates, a penalty try after their scrum had almost marched over twice sparking a flurry of points.
“It was good we finished stronger than we started,” Kelly said.
He thought whenever they had the ball they were good, but were pretty poor when they didn’t.
The stuff off the ball that is such a strong feature of their play, like their support play, wasn’t up to their usual standard.
That said he was very happy with the scrum and thought Andrew Moodie controlled the backline well.
He was the only of the backs in his normal position, a likely season-ending knee injury to Jake Hartmann at training on Thursday night forcing a late reshuffle.
The Red Devils weren’t immune from disruptions and while he conceded that it’ is hard to be happy with a loss like that, coach Jason Waerea, was.
“I’m pretty happy with everything,” he said.
“The first 50 minutes of that game that’s the strongest football I’ve seen the Red Devils play.”
The scrum was “unreal” until they lost prop Matt Pardesi to a blue card, they competed well at the ruck, and defensively really got up in Pirates faces and denied them time and space.
Particularly in the midfield Waerea “couldn’t fault” the work of Jamie Mitchell and Jono Madden, who were playing together for the first time.
He thought their first half was “just strong, not flashy” but was rueing their inability to turn their early possession into points.
“A couple of times down there we got a bit separated on some of those hit-ups,” he said.
“They are very good over the ball, you can’t afford to get isolated.”
Right in the game at half-time, losing Pardesi was a big blow. That was when Waerea really felt the game started to turn, with the Red Devils losing a bit of traction in their scrum.
“We’re aligning everything to our set piece,” he said.
Unfortunately the lineout didn’t function as well as they would have hoped, which didn’t help.
“They were very offensive in the lineout, which disrupted us,” Waerea said.
The Red Devils did have a completely new second row with both Matt Roseby and Tom Torrens out with injury.
Waerea thought Matt Neilson and Kurtys Bont stepping in did a good job, describing the latter as a find.
Originally from Claremont he has moved to Boggabri for work.
“He was solid,” he said.
Nick Lyons also had an awesome game.
One of the most pleasing things for Waerea was the ruck. They gave away a lot fewer penalties than they have been. It is an area they have really focused on.
