The Cobar Roosterettes were eventually outdone by a determined Baradine side in their Round 8 Castlereagh Ladies League Tag game at Tom Knight Memorial Oval on Saturday.
Plenty of skills were displayed throughout the match by both teams and, with the scores locked at 10-all two minutes before half time, it looked like the match could go either way.
Baradine opened the scoring early in the match with a converted try and shortly after Sophie Clark opened the account for the Roosterettes when she snuck over for a try.
Brianna Watson’s spot on long range conversion levelled the scores to 6-all.
Cobar were next to score after a sensational break away run down field by Kayla Hasson who passed off to Watson in support.
Watson crossed to score and, while her conversion attempt was unsuccessful, the Roosterettes had the upper hand at 10-6.
A talented veteran of the league, Maria Nagy, bamboozled the Roosterettes defence and she slipped over to score after her defenders fell for a deft dummy pass on the line.
When Nagy missed her own conversion (the only one all game) the scores were locked up at 10-all.
A 60m runaway try by Baradine’s Zali Fulton just before the break, was converted by Nagy, and gave the visitors a 16-10 lead as they went to the sheds.
At the half time talk, Roosterettes co-coach John ‘JD’ Dunn called for a tightening up of Cobar’s defence.
“We’ve been working on that a fair bit during the week,” JD told The Cobar Weekly.
He said the team’s pillar defence had been excellent in closing the gap against Baradine’s attacking raids.
“Last week, we played the best we’ve ever played but, this week we sort of got stuck with that inside ball from the attacking side which left us flat footed.”
Dunn said that was where Baradine’s halfback Nagy kept taking advantage.
Starting the second half, both sides had shored up their defence and scoring opportunities were limited until the 53rd minute of the game when the Roosterettes were attacking the line. Watson put pressure on Baradine with a high kick which resulted in a ball handling error by Baradine and returned possession to Cobar.
Taylah Good took advantage and ran wide to outsprint two Baradine defenders and score under the posts. Watson’s conversion bounced off the posts and Cobar narrowly trailed 14-16.
A converted try for Baradine soon after extended their lead to eight points, 22-14.
Nagy was instrumental in her side’s final try when, after putting up an extremely high kick in play, it was regathered by a team mate and passed back to Nagy who crossed to touch down for her second try, which she also converted. It would be the last points of the game as for the remaining seven minutes of the match, neither side could penetrate the other’s defence.
JD said a number of his players had good games, in particular some of the younger players including Sosie Barton in dummy half.
“She’s in the spine, and we sort of put the pressure on her to go straight in there and she’s just handled it,” he said.
Other standouts for JD in Saturday’s game were Maddie Jeffries and Rory Urquhart.
“One of the most improved this year is Niamh Anderson. She’s come in a bit late to the season and a couple of things that I’ve told her to work on, she’s done it.
“She’s already become a senior role model for the team. All the girls are listening to her. She’s a key component out there. She holds the defence line together.”
In addition to being a threat in attack, Hasson also proved to be invaluable in defence and didn’t miss a tag all game; Clark worked hard in defence; Bridgette Negfeldt did a good job in cover defence playing at fullback; and Bianka Jacobson’s kicks in play constantly put pressure on the Baradine defence.
