On a sunny Saturday afternoon at the Braidwood Rec ground, the Bears were taking on Boomanulla. The atmosphere was building on the back of the Bears with their new playing kit that arrived, things were looking up.
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Boomanulla got ahead start with conceding a line break in the very first set which lead to a well worked try. A few small errors from the Bears, they conceded a penalty from the following sets which then lead to another try from Boomanulla.
Boomanulla, a far improved outfit to the one who lost to the Bears in a pre-season game looked like they had turned up to play. Fundamental errors from the Bears which seem to be plaguing the boy’s season left Braidwood trailing 18-0 on the Braidwood community bank scoreboard after 20 minutes into the first half. After defending for long periods of the first half the Braidwood boys finally strung a few sets of possession together and were starting to roll forward creating space for the outside backs. Eddie Jenkins linked up well with Harry Treloar who managed to poke his big head through a hole for the Bears first try of the game.
Going into halftime with the Braidwood community bank scoreboard now 22-6 to Boomanulla, the Bears knew there was work to be done. A stronger second half start ensued for the Bears with new recruit Jamie Cooper providing some much needed aggression in defense and attack. Shane Southwell scored his first try of the season after showing good speed to get on the end of a grubber kick.
With the heat and pace of the game affecting both sides it became an open affair with a lot of end to end football. A couple of try saving tackles from Jake Neddrie kept the Bears in the game, the score at one stage got to 28-10.
Brad Woods showed smart game thinking by taking a tap quickly off a penalty and racing 20 meters and beating a few defenders to score his first try of the season. With the game now at 28-14 with not much time left the Bears looked on top and started getting a roll on, scoring another try off the back of some hard running from Jamie cooper, who offloaded to Chris Corcoran who showed good determination to feed the ball back to Harry Treloar to score his second for the day.
A handling error from the kick off allowed Boomanulla to score a late try which effectively locked the game up. The Bears did not give up with Jamie Cooper and Nick McArthur laying on a huge hit from kick off firing the boys up. The Bears left their charge late with Jamie Cooper again proving a handful scoring off an Eddie Jenkins inside ball, Cooper proving too big and strong to stop that close to the line.
Too little too late for the Bears, with the Final score showed on the Braidwood community bank scoreboard was 36-24 to Boomanulla, a close game for Braidwood.
Player’s player for the day went to fullback Jake Neddrie who proved a handful with his ball running and showed good vision with some of his passing and kicking.
Next week the boys will look to improve as they take on Boorowa Rovers at Boorowa next Saturday at 2:30pm. With some key players returning from injury and holidays the Bears will hopefully have a full strength team for the first time this year. Fear the Bear.
