It was all one-way traffic at Tom Knight
Memorial Oval on Saturday afternoon as
the Cobar Roosters demolished the visiting
Baradine Magpies 70-0 in Round 11 of the
Christie & Hood Castlereagh Rugby League
competition.
The Magpies had few answers to the rampaging
Roosters attack and were soundly beaten
by a team that is widely tipped to be making
an appearance on grand final day.
While the Baradine side didn’t appear to put
up too much resistance, to their credit, the Cobar
team was in sensational form on Saturday.
And while he was reasonably happy with the
final result, Roosters coach Dean ‘Bogga’
McLeod, said there was “still some room for
improvement”.
Saturday’s game was barely two minutes old
when Ashley Davies opened Cobar’s account
and scored after a near length of the field run.
That was a just a taste of things to come as
nine more Cobar players touched down for the
Roosters in their mammoth 70-0 win.
Gerald Mackay strolled over for the Roosters
second try and David Watson’s successful
conversion had them up 10-0 after just seven
minutes of play.
Tristan Everett’s strong run and windmill
maneuvering through the Baradine defenders
resulted in Cobar’s next points.
A kick close to the try line by Tom Plater,
which he regathered in a one-on-one strip, had
the fragmented Magpies defence scrambling
and they were hard pressed to stop the forceful
Jed Noonan as he crossed for Cobar’s fourth
try.
The Baradine defenders were again caught
out and were looking stunned as David Watson
crossed out wide and was allowed to run
around in goal and score close to the posts.
His conversion kick was an easy one and
took the score along to 28-0.
Jimmy Neyland’s long pass to pacey winger
Jack Brown on the fly resulted in their next try
and Tim Hillam, who was back to his top form,
crossed for the first of his two tries to give the
Roosters a 38-0 lead at the half time break.
The Roosters kept the pedal to the metal
throughout the second half and, with their injury
count climbing, Baradine had no answers.
Brown opened the Roosters account in the
second half; Neyland slipped through to score;
hard working Nathan McAndrew muscled his
way over for their next try; Ben Simon also
broke through for a try; Hillam was next to
score after he won the ball chase after Watson
put a well-weighted kick into the corner; and
there were just too many keen Roosters looking
for the ball in the closing minutes of the
game as Watson sent it wide and Brown scored
his third touchdown in the corner to close out
their 70-0 win.
Watson finished with seven conversions and
Neyland kicked anther two.
Hillam earned Coach McLeod’s Best & Fairest
three points, Plater picked up two points
and Mackay collected one point.
Plater was named the Roosters Players’ Player
of the match.
The Roosters will head to Coonabarabran
this Saturday for Round 12.