After a long season for the Castlereagh Reserve Graders who had played four games in four weeks, last week’s much needed bye was welcomed ahead of this week’s long bus trip to Gulgong for the final round of the ordinary competition.
The hosts didn’t take long to open the scoring and, after only a couple of minutes passing the ball around, the Terriers had four points on the board.
After a few mistakes made by Cobar and, with the Gulgong boys keen to impress their home crowd, they recorded another two tries to take the score to 14-0 after 20 minutes of play.
Once again Cobar’s Dallas Josephson was on his game causing havoc in and around the ruck and proving he’s got a few more years before the retirement home gets him.
Tyson Brilley had an impressive effort stepping around the whole opposition’s team to cross the line – only to get held up by four of the scrambling Terriers’ defence.
The Cobar boys walked off at half time with Jimmy Neyland giving the team a motivational speech that must have worked for him only as five minutes into the second half he crossed the line to open up the Reggies’ comeback.
Matt Hunter wanted his name in the paper this week and converted from straight in front taking the score to 14-6.
The Cobar boys had their heads down and were working overtime in defence, but finally the Terriers managed to cross the line, after finding space around the edges, and took the points up to 20-6.
With 16 minutes left on the rocket clock, the Cobar halves Robert Childs and Tristan Everett, took some ownership of the game and got their forwards moving to set up a back line move for Cobar’s favourite Captain/Coach, Chris Deighton, to cross the line to score and start the real comeback.
Hunter toe punted this conversion bringing the margin to 20-12.
With the minutes on the clock fading away like a Sound Chapel sunset, Everett attacked up through the centre to change the score to 20-16.
With two minutes to go, Neyland and Deighton joined forces with a chip and chase kick majestically floating through the defence for Deighton to recover the ball out of the Terriers grip and charge further down the field.
With a quick play of the ball, Hunter took it upon himself to end the game taking the ball up and catching the defence offside which resulted in a penalty right in front and two metres out.
Hunter took the quick penalty tap and fell over the line to score and the level the scores.
Hunter, being desperate to play in another grand final, converted his own try and took the score to 22-20 in favour of the Roosters.
This win sent the team to third position on the competition ladder.
All three Cobar grades play in the qualifying semi finals in Dunedoo this Saturday.
—contributed
