High hopes for the Camels were dashed by Pumas

Buoyed by a very good performance last week, the Cobar Camels Old Boys cheer squad had high hopes the First Grade team would continue their good form into their Round 10 game against Warren on Satur-day.
That however didn’t happen as the Camels were beaten 39-0.
The Camels were forced to host the Pumas on Saturday without the services of their entire front row (who were unavailable due to injury, work and family commitments).
They tried to compensate and do the best with the team they had and, for much of the first half, they did match the visitors.
Warren’s first points came after an early penalty and it wasn’t until midway through the first half that they had the opportunity to in-crease the score when they pulled off a runa-way try to score in the corner and lead 8-0.
After sustained attack on the Camels’ line, the Pumas crossed at the 30 minute mark and the successful conversion took their lead out to 15-0.
The Camels’ defence held tight for the re-mainder of the first half but so did the Pumas’ defence as none of the Camels attacking raids could penetrate and the score was still 15-0 at half time.
Warren had plenty of possession in the sec-ond half which showed on the scoreboard.
Their attack had plenty of speed and the Pu-mas used that pace a number of times during the second half to outrun the Camels.
They scored four second half tries, the last of which was scored right on the fulltime siren, to finish with a 39-0 win.
While the Camels showed improvements in their scrummaging, and are backing each other up and starting to gel well as a team, they turned the ball over too often in Saturday’s game which ultimately hurt them on the score-board.
A lack of fitness also showed as their back-line defence lagged in the second half which was when the Pumas scored the bulk of their points.
Cobar’s Best & Fairest recipients were: Sam-uel Jeffery (3), Timothy Stever (2) and Jayden Harvey and Jay Ellison (1 point each).
Jeffery was named Players’ Player.
Barring injuries, the Camels will be hoping they can field their full side this week when they host Gulargambone for Round 11, which will also be the club’s Ladies Day.
In the women’s rugby game that proceeded the main game, the Cobar Bactrians hosted the Warren ladies side with the visitors finishing with a 5-2 win.
Sally Schintler and Taylah Good recorded Cobar’s tries.
Cobar’s Players’ Player was Roisin McGol-drick and she also shared in the Bactrians’ Best & Fairest points, picking up two points.
Three points went to Ellie Munro with Sally Schintler picking up one point.