The many months of training and fitness sessions in the lead up to the 2016 Western Plains Rugby season are starting to pay dividends for the Cobar Camels with the club recording a strong 35-7 win over Walgett on Saturday at Ailsa Fitzsimmons Memorial Oval.
Camels’ strength and conditioning coach John Barnes was impressed with the side’s performance.
“The whole team played exceptional.
“It was evident Cobar Camels came out motivated and ready to play after a positive week on the training field,” Barnes told The Cobar Weekly.
He said they were forced to make a couple of positional changes this week due to injuries and work commitments but the team gelled well as a unit and stayed focussed.
Barnes said their game plan on Saturday had been to play a high intensity game and keep moving the ball around.
“This paid off with some brilliant breakaway tries,” he said.
Cobar led 14-0 at the half time break and extended their lead to 35-0 before the visitors ran in a late consolation try.
The final margin was 35-7.
While Walgett’s scrum outweighed the Camels pack, Barnes said it was good scrum technique that saw the Camels out scrum their opposition.
“The forward pack and the back line functioned well as a unit and their pick and drive technique and then spreading the ball wide to the back line was well executed,” he said.
His stand out player in the backline was Tom Wall, who as usual played his high standard game. Wall was well served by half back Jamie Peters.
Connar Boyko, playing blindside breakaway also had a good game along with Tom Wihongi, who was outstanding on his first game as blind side flanker.
