2019 competition title after finishing with a 6-1 win over Racks & Sacks in the grand final on Thursday night at Tom Knight Memorial Oval.
While the final score showed it was a fairly comprehensive win for Barracudas, the teams were however locked at 0-all for the first 10 minutes of the game.
Racks & Sacks made good ground from their first touch of the ball and immediately had Barracudas back-pedalling as they hit their line. A ball handling mistake by Barracudas shortly after the change-over had them desperately defending their line again as Racks & Sacks threw the ball around looking to score.
Brennah Aumua got her Barracudas team out of trouble when she intercepted a pass and ran a good 40 metres before she was tagged on the halfway line.
The Barracudas’ players then started linking well with Tim Hillam, Loma Atuau, Jed Noonan, David Watson, Brianna Watson, Marty Turton, Aumua, Jenna Fullagar and Nathan McAndrew creating lots of opportunities for their team mates.
For Racks & Sacks, Braith Good, Jack Govett, Codi Mackay and Hamish McLeod kept looking for opportunities to break the Barracudas’ defence.
At the 10 minute mark Atuau put in a kick over the line and chased it through to regather and score first points for Barracudas.
Shortly after the re-start, Atuau was looking dangerous again and made a break away run but was caught by Racks & Sacks’ tenacious defender, Naomi Whitehurst.
Five minutes later, after finding an overlap on the far side, Hillam touched down to put Barracudas ahead 2-0.
As the half time buzzer sounded there was desperate play from both sides however the score remained 2-0 at the break.
The second half started the same as the first with neither side able to penetrate the other’s defence. However five minutes in Fullagar raced away out wide to touch down for Barracudas and double the score to 4-0 (female tries are worth two points).
Barracudas had the ascendency and Racks & Sacks struggled to rein in their attacking raids.
Five minutes before full time David Watson crossed and passed off to Aumua (who had followed in support) and when she scored Barracudas had a 6-0 lead.
Racks & Sacks’ only try of the game came in the final minute of play and was scored in spectacular fashion by their speedster Travis Schintler, who danced around three defenders before racing to the line.
