The Cobar Roosterettes returned to the winning circle with a 26-18 win over their closest rivals, the Gilgandra Pink Panthers, in Round 8 of the Castlereagh League Tag competition on Saturday.
The Roosterettes always looked in control of the match played at Tom Knight Memorial Oval and, while they had an early glut of pos-session and made continuous raids on their try line, it was actually the Panthers who put first points on the board.
Their try came midway through the first half, on what was only their second foray to within 10 metres of their try line, and the Panthers led 6-0 at the first drinks break.
Cobar’s first points were scored soon after the re-start when Roosterettes’ playmaker, Tyler Chiswick, looking to put a team mate into a gap to score, decided to go herself and ducked over to score Cobar’s first try.
The Panthers scored again (after only spend-ing a short time attacking the try line) with Shain Chatfield converting her own try to give her Pink Panthers side a 12-4 lead.
Cobar’s fullback Brennah Aumua made a number of breaks in Saturday’s game, one of which resulted in a try just before halftime. Brianna Watson converted to close the mar-gin to 12-10 at half time.
Gilgandra opened the scoring in the second half and Chatfield’s sideline conversion pushed their lead out to 18-10 before Watson scored a converted try to bring the gap back to just two points, 18-16.
Cobar’s attack sparked up with Kayla Hasson having a couple of break-away runs up field and, when Aumua scored her second try (which was converted by Watson), the Roosterettes’ confidence grew as they took the lead on the scoreboard for the first time in the match at 22-18.
With four minutes left to play, tempers flared in the Panthers team as they could see their opportunity to win slipping away, and referee Paddy Hallcroft had cause to send one of the Gilgandra players to the sin-bin for backchat.
The Roosterettes kept their calm and when Hasson crossed for a try with three minutes left to play, that sealed their 26-18 win.
Watson collected three Best & Fairest points with two points going to Aumua and Hasson earned one point.
Aumua was named Players’ Player.
