Gunnedah's forward power again came to the fore on Saturday as the Red Devils charged their way to a 21- point win over Scone to close out the first round.
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Stung by the Brumbies in the corresponding game last season, the Red Devils recovered from a stumble early in the second half, and the loss of half-back, and captain, Zac Newcombe midway through the first half, to cement their place in the top four 41-20.
"Our goal was to finish in the top four after the first half of the comp and we've done that, so that's very pleasing," second rower Matt Roseby said.
Souring the victory, they look like being without Newcombe for upwards of a month after he broke his ankle when he was caught high.
The win was set up in the last 20 minutes of the first half. After grinding it out for the first 20, the Red Devils ran in four tries - at one point they scored three in the space of 10 minutes - to kick away to a 29-8 lead a half-time.
Continuing on from his strong performance for Central North last weekend, breakaway Seva Nadruku crossed twice as the Red Devils' forwards asserted their authority on the contest.
They were given a bit of a scare when, after scoring right on half-time, the Brumbies were all over them early in the second half, and through backrower-come-prop Doug McKillop, cut their lead back to 14 points.
But they found their groove again in the most spectacular of fashion. From a scrum about 20m out, Sanimo Navatu took the ball off the back and customarily pushed off a couple of defenders before linking up with Nadruku. After advancing the Red Devils another 10 or so metres, Nadruku found Darrell Morrison in support, and he raced away 50m to score.
Assuming the captaincy duties when Newcombe went off, Roseby said that try did give them a boost.
"A big try like that lifted everyone's head and we worked on from that," he said.
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Pushing into half-back when Newcombe went off, Morrison darted over a couple of minutes later for his second to quell any concerns of a repeat of last year.
"That exact game last year, Scone beat us," Roseby recalled.
"We were in front at half-time and they came back in the second and beat us."
"It was very pleasing to see that we didn't lose our control and our composure and we managed to hold them out."
As it has been pretty much every game this season the scrum was again dominant. Roseby thought the outside backs also worked really well together.
Coming off the bench Navatu was "huge again". George Gribble at seven also "tackled all day".
"He's a machine," he said.
"He just never gives up."
The Red Devils have the bye next week and then it's full throttle from there.
"You never get an easy game in this competition but the next six weeks after the bye are going to be huge for us," Roseby said.
McKillop was immense for the visitors, the usual Brumbies number eight making several damaging runs.