The Cobar Roosters’ 2024 Castlereagh season opener against Narromine at Tom Knight Memorial Oval on Saturday got off to a sensational start with Cobar winning two out of their three games.
Playing in front of a big appreciative crowd and on a superb re-invigorated playing pitch, the Cobar Juniors scored an impressive 44-16 win first up before the Cobar Roosterettes put on another good show in their League Tag game against Narromine.
After holding a narrow lead at half time, the Cobar side was eventually beaten by the last season’s premiers 28-16.
(See pages 21 and 22 in this week’s edition for Juniors and League Tag game reports.)
The First Grade match then took centre stage and the Roosters didn’t disappoint scoring two quick tries in the opening minutes.
It took the visiting Jets some time to play themselves into the game but they were never really able to match the Roosters on the field as Cobar ran away to an emphatic 58-14 win.
Co-coaches Loma Atuau and Thomas Plater were both impressed with the Roosters’ first round performance.
“It’s definitely a good way to start our campaign,” Atuau said.
Plater said their quick play of the ball and using their size in the middle worked well.
“Once we got that rolling and got a momentum, we actually used it and kept working through the middle,” Plater said.
It was the middle where Tyler Coughlan found a gap in the opening set to effortlessly race down the field to score under the posts and open the Roosters’ account.
Two minutes later Coughlan was sparking their attack again when he broke through the Jets’ defence and sprinted down the right wing.
Before he was swamped by the Jets’ cover defence, Coughlan managed to get a pass inside to fullback Ashley Davies in support, who ran over the line untouched to score Cobar’s second try.
Jimmy Neyland converted both tries to give the Roosters a 12-0 lead after just four minutes of play.
The game settled a bit then and it wasn’t until nearly halfway through the first half that Narromine scored their first points, an unconverted try, after sustained attack on the line.
Halfback Ryan Urquhart headed up the Roosters’ razzle-dazzle attack.
He played a hand in setting up their next try.
Initially Urquhart steered play to the left (dragging the Narromine defence with him) before he deftly switched back right and slipped an inside pass to Chris Crotty. Crotty strolled over to score under the posts which made for another easy conversion for Neyland.
The free-flowing attack continued and a break away run on the wing by Jack Brown resulted in another stroll-over try for captain/co-coach Thomas Plater.
Neyland’s fourth conversion put Cobar ahead 24-4.
Brown broke away again just minutes later.
He put in a chip-chase kick which he regathered and passed off to Tadgh McMullen in support.
McMullen still had some work to do but he fought off two defenders to force his way over to score.
Neyland missed his first conversion of the day however Cobar was still calling all the shots with the score at 28-4.
Neyland was back on track with his next conversion attempt after captain/co-coach Loma Atuau scored the first of his two tries in the game which took the score to 34-4 going into the halftime break.
The Jets came out fired up in the second half and looked like scoring immediately however the Roosters defence scrambled well and thwarted that attempt. An ankle tap by Ben Griffiths slowed up the Jets would be scorer giving Plater extra time to wrap him up in a tackle just metres out from the tryline.
The action then returned to the other end of the field as the Roosters scored the next four tries in quick succession.
Jed Noonan, coming off the bench, scored a try on his return to the side after having last season off; Tim Hillam scored in his trademark ‘stretch out over the line’ style; Griffiths found space out wide; and Atuau vaulted over the line to score his second try of the match.
Narromine then momentarily interrupted the flow with an unconverted try before the Roosters took back control of the game.
Plater combined with Nathan McAndrew to score their final try in the dying minutes of the match and the Jets scored a late consolation try just before the final siren.
In a post match interview, co-coaches Atuau and Plater praised the reinvigorated playing surface with Plater commenting it’s the best he’s ever played on.
The pair said they are confident the team can continue their winning success when they travel to Gulgong this Saturday.
“It’s a fair bit of a hike but I reckon we’ll be ready,” Atuau said.
Plater said at training this week they’ll be working more on their game structure.
“We need to identify where we’re going and that we actually get there and do it.
“It’s okay to play ad-lib like we did at times today, but we need to have some structure for when it does fall down,” Plater said.
