A narrow 36-26 loss by the Cobar Roosters First Grade side to the Narromine Jets on Saturday night at Tom Knight Memorial Oval has allowed the Gulgong Terriers to claim the top spot on the Christie & Hood Castlereagh League ladder.
The Gulgong Terriers sit alone at the top of the table as the only undefeated side after four rounds of the 2023 competition.
Playing at home, the Terriers proved to be too strong for the visiting Baradine Magpies scoring seven tries to two in their 38-12 win on Saturday.
Going into Round 4 of the competition, the Cobar Roosters had also been unbeaten, but their loss to the Jets has seen them now demoted from the top of the table to third spot behind Narromine.
In Saturday night’s game (pushed back to a late start under lights after the Cobar Races), the Jets opened the scoring just one and a half minutes into the match to lead 6-0.
Cobar soon responded making the most of a Jets’ ball handling error which resulted in a scrum close to their try line.
A long pass to Jack Brown out on the wing, who dived over to score, brought the Roosters back into the game as they narrowly trailed
4-6.
Big forward Gerald Mackey put the Roosters in front when he scored next to the posts and Tom Plater’s successful conversion had the Roosters ahead 10-6.
The Jets levelled the scores midway through the first half and Doug Potter’s second of six conversions in the game gave Narromine a
12-10 advantage.
Five minutes later the Jets crossed again to push their lead out to 18-10 and, just before halftime, they further extended the margin to 24-10 with another converted try.
The Cobar side came out of the sheds at half time with a more committed attitude however they made a number of errors in their rush to make up the deficit.
In contrast the Jets’ continued their well-drilled, controlled style of play to push their lead out to 36-10.
It was then that the Roosters’ razzle-dazzle style of play was invoked with captain/coach Tom Plater scoring the try of the match after he quickly darted out from the back of the scrum and ran wide to score on the wing…Full report in this week’s edition out now!!
