The Cobar Roosters First Graders delivered an early-season statement when they toppled the reigning premiers, the Coolah Roos, in a dominant display at Tom Knight Memorial Oval on Saturday.
Facing the team that had claimed back-to-back premierships in 2024 and 2025 (and the very opponent who denied Cobar the glory in the 2024 grand final), the Roosters well and truly exacted revenge beating Coolah 34-12 in their Round 2 Castlereagh Rugby League match.
Roosters’ coach Slade Neale said their intention going into Saturday’s game was to rattle the Roos.
“We know they’ve got a big mouth and a lot of aggression, so we wanted to get under their skin and keep our cool,” Neale said.
Roosters captain Nathan McAndrew said they were ready for the Roos to “niggle” them and Cobar’s focus was to ignore that.
And mostly Cobar did that in a fiery game that was marred by seven sinbinning offences, two of which were against Cobar players while the referee sent one Coolah player three times to cool his heels in the bin.
Neale and McAndrew were pleased with the team’s ever improving defensive efforts, which was a big contributor to their match win on Saturday.
They also praised an inspiring Players’ Player performance by Roosters veteran, Tristan Everett, who recorded a hat trick of tries.
Also helping the Roosters to their win was Tadhg McMullen, who crossed for a double.
Neale and former captain/coach David Watson also added to their try tally with Jack Brown scoring the Roosters’s final try in sensational style following a thrilling full length of the field run.
Thomas Plater added another two points to their tally with his conversion.
Cobar’s Best & Fairest points went to Brown (3 points), Plater (2 points) and McMullen (1 point).
The Roosters will head to Coonabarabran for Round 3 this week with Coach Neale expecting it to be a tough match.
“They looked pretty good at the knockout, so hopefully we can keep these numbers that we’re getting to training in to the away game and we should roll away with that one too,” Neale said.
The First Graders, along with the Ladies League Tag side, will also be joined by the Under 18s and Reserve Grade teams on the paddock at Coonabarabran for their opening games of the 2026 competition.
