Roosters doubled up against Raiders

The Cobar Roosters senior rugby league teams were on the road early on Saturday morning headed to Dubbo to take on the Macquarie Raiders in the Tooheys Group 11 Rugby League competition.
The Cobar club was short on players available for Saturday’s games with 11 players doing double duty to play both the First Grade and Reserve Grade games.
Despite many backing up from Reserve Grade, the Roosters First Grade team started their match well with Tim Winitana opening the scoring after a Macquarie try for a 6-4 deficit.
Following a melee where one player from each team spent time cooling their heels in the sin bin and a converted Raiders try, Michael Tahitua showed great footwork and strength to barge over close to the posts to score for the Roosters which was converted by Wade Potter for a 12-10 deficit.
Macquarie added more points before some good lead up work on the right edge allowed centre Suka Fakahua to finish off a set play for the Roosters which was converted by Potter for a 28-16 halftime score.
The second half started well with Ngamanu Winitana scoring and Potter converting to rein back the deficit to six points (28-22) but with fatigue setting in Macquarie were able to capitalise and add more points before Tahitua secured his double with another charge at the line. Fakahua converted.
A late try to Tim Hillam brought the final score to 52-32 in the Raiders’ favour.
Club secretary Ben Trudgett said with so many First Graders playing two games of football against a fresh opposition, it unfortunately made it difficult in the later stages of the match for the Roosters.
“It was great of so many of them to put their hand up to help out the Reggies without being asked. This shows that there is a great club culture of helping each other out,” he said.
Reserve Grade: Only seven regular Reserve Grade players made the trip to Dubbo and the side needed assistance from some Under 18s players and First Graders to field a team.
Within the first two sets Mick Gibson scored adjacent to the posts and Wade Potter’s conversion gave Cobar an early 6-0 lead. An unconverted try to Macquarie brought the score back to 6-4 but this was to be the closet they would come all game to the Cobar outfit.
Cobar’s second try came from a wide charge from Ben Simon which was duly converted by Potter before he made the game his own with two solo tries (both of which he also converted) for Cobar to lead 24-4 at halftime.
The Raiders scored first after the break reducing the margin to 24-10 before a loose pass was scooped up by Potter who raced 70 metres outrunning the Raiders’ fullback to score under the posts. His conversion then gave Cobar a
30-10 lead.
Macquarie ran in two late tries but the Cobar Reggies had done enough to post their first win of the season away from home against the third placed Raiders. Best for Cobar were Jordan Cranch, the ageless Mark Aumua, Potter, Loma Atuau and Bayley Prendergast.
Under 18s: Unfortunately the Roosters could only muster nine players for the Under 18s game but, despite being down on numbers, the players toiled hard all day to show true fighting spirit.
Down 28-0 at halftime, the Cobar boys came out in the second half determined to put points on the board.
And that’s exactly what they did with tries to Marty Turton (an Under 16s player) and Nick Mines (both of which were converted by Bayley Prendergast) and strong defensive structure which limited the final score to 52-12.
Brandon Jones, Mines, Brook Anderson, Nick Buckman, Prendergast, Turton, Reece Williams and Blade Hall all put in big efforts for Cobar.
The club is hoping for more players to be available for this week’s Round 12 games with another road trip on Sunday to Narromine.
“We’re hoping to field not only full sides, but to also be competitive against them,” Trudgett said.