opportunity to play in this Saturday’s grand final.
The Cobar Roosters are quite accustomed to taking the long road but on Saturday, in the Christie and Hood Castlereagh League preliminary final, the road was not long at all, but it most certainly was hard for both the Cobar players and their large band of supporters.
Playing at their beloved Tom Knight Memorial Oval home ground, the Roosters, not for the first time in recent outings, put themselves in a precarious position on the scoreboard.
It took one almighty comeback late in the game before the Roosters secured themselves a grand final berth against the Gulgong Bull Terriers this Saturday in Gulgong, a game that will provide them with the opportunity to claim back-to-back competition premierships!
The huge Narromine Jets side flexed their muscles throughout the match and the home side were hard pressed to contain their big, mobile forwards on numerous occasions.
The Jets had first points on the board early in the game but Cobar took back the upper hand on the score board when Jayden Paul crossed for Cobar’s first try after good lead up work by Tim Hillam on the burst which was followed soon after by a runaway try to Roosters star fullback Ash Davies for Cobar to have a narrow 8-6 lead.
After a well-placed cross-field kick resulted in a try for the Jets, they went to the half time break with a 10-8 lead.
Throughout the match the Roosters’ ball security was not of a high standard, with their inability to retain possession costing them dearly while aiding and abetting the Jets to stretch their two points lead out to what seemed to be a match winning 22-8 score board midway through the second half.
Prior to what was going to prove to be a pivotal play by Cobar’s captain/coach, Thomas Plater, in the 23rd minute of the second stanza, the Jets looked to be the dominate side, with only the two rapid fire tries of the first half to the Roosters being the lone bright period of play for the home side up until that point.
Certainly, Plater’s quick thinking in executing a one-on-one strip of the ball from a Narromine player who had just fielded a Roosters kick in his own in-goal, and grounding the ball for a try, provided Cobar with some degree of belief that they were still in the game, and after all they hadn’t spent the past six weeks travelling thousands of kilometres only to be beaten at home!
And while their ball retention continued to flounder, their will to win did not, and after two unconverted tries in the 67th minute (to Gerald Mackey) and 74th minute (from Paul again) of the game, it was 22-all!
A penalty goal to the Roosters edged them ahead 24-22 with just minutes remaining, and with the game on a knife edge, the result was not decided until Roosters’ young centre Fraser Talu touched down in the last few seconds of the game to ensure that his side were into their second successive grand final with the final score being 30-22.
Continued Page 15.
