following the Youth League grand final game at Tom Knight Memorial Oval on Saturday.
The Cobar Roosters Under 18s were beaten on the buzzer in their Castlereagh Youth League grand final by the Coonabarabran Unicorns in front of a big crowd at Tom Knight Memorial Oval on Saturday.
The game was decided by a penalty goal that was kicked after the fulltime siren had sounded with the Unicorns claiming a 16-14 victory.
After scoring two early tries, Coonabarabran took command of the first half.
The Roosters reacted with some undisciplined play and gave away too many penalties.
Unused to playing in front of a big crowd that applauded each and every tackle, the nerves crept in and both sides made mistakes and dropped the ball on numerous occasions.
Another runaway try a minute before half time put the Unicorns ahead 14-0 at the break.
It was a different story in the second half with the Roosters taking the ascendancy.
Drew Barton pushed over to put first points on the board for the Roosters and Brennan Auckett’s successful conversion reduced the margin to 14-6.
The penalty count started going Cobar’s way. Lachie Brookman snuck over to score Cobar’s second try and it was at that point the Coonabarabran team began to come unstuck and were given a stern talking to by their coach.
Aiden Swan, who’d been probing the try line all game, muscled his way over for a try and locked the scores up at 14-all with less than 10 minutes left to play.
The Roosters no doubt will be now rueing the fact that they opted to tap the ball instead of taking a shot at a penalty goal when there was only three minutes to go as it was a penalty goal in the last minute that won the match for the Unicorns.
Roosters coach John Dunn said he was really happy with his team’s performance and said Cobar was unlucky.
“It was frustrating at times from a coach’s point of view, we made a bad decision, that we didn’t take the kick for two points, but their second half defence was outstanding, as well as their communication on the field.
“They can all hold their heads up,” he said.
In the League Tag game that followed the Dunedoo Swannettes beat the Coolah Flyers 16 to 6.
The Castlereagh League Player of the Year awards were announced after the respective grand finals with the Youth League honours being shared between Cobar’s Jaxon Burke and Gilgandra’s Sailor Ryan.
The League Tag player of the year award went to Coolah’s Brooklyn Blackadder and Cobar’s Thomas Plater and DJ Smith from Gilgandra were announced as co-winners of First Grade.
