The MEC Mooseknuckles won back-to-back League Tag premiership titles with a 6-2 grand final victory over the Barracudas on Thursday night at Ward Oval.
Led by their original team members Chris and Tanya Gilbert, Alistair and Lisa Travis, Jay Egan, Zoë Harland, Cheryl Peatey, Matt McBride and Nikki Davey, for the past 10 years MEC has dominated both the local League Tag and Touch competitions and last week once again demonstrated they are still a force to be reckoned with.
Coming up against a classy Barracudas team made up mostly of current First Grade Roosters and Roosterettes players, it was MEC’s years of teamwork that ultimately served them well and helped them to a win.
After fast and furious end-to-end play during the first half, the score at the half time break was nil-all after both sides had each spoiled an opportunity to score through dropped balls over the line.
Playing for the Barracudas, David Watson’s grubber kicks close to their line were causing havoc for the MEC defenders however a sensational tagging effort by Tanya Gilbert (who kept it up all game) helped to keep the Barracudas from scoring.
Early in the second half, Chris Deighton
took advantage of a penalty close to the try line and dived over to put the Barracudas 1-0 ahead.
Immediately following the restart Adam Dougherty crashed through the Barracuda’s defence and found support in Chris Gilbert who then passed off to Bianka Jacobson who scored out wide to then put MEC in front at
2-1. (Female tries are worth two points.)
Alistair Travis and Tanya Gilbert orchestrated MEC’s next try with Gilbert touching down to put her team up 4-1.
Deighton raced away to score a near length of the field try (he was however was pushed all the way to the line by Harland) and his second try closed the gap to 4-2.
Just before full time MEC made the most of an overlap out wide and a pass to the safe hands of Alex Hernando resulted in MEC’s third try which gave them their 6-2 win.
A repechage social match between the 3rd and 4th placed teams was played after the main game and was followed by a barbecue and the end of season presentations.
Chris Deighton and Ash Davies tied for the title of Most Tries of the Season by a male with 12 and Madasan Taylor was the highest female try scorer of the season, also with 12.
