A special mention goes out to Joel Jordon, one of the Redbacks form players of the season, who sustained a serious knee injury against during the narrow loss to Batemans Bay last week. To make things worse, captain Tommy Watson was a late withdrawal after aggravating an achilles injury during the warm-up, which put pressure on an already dwindling reserves bench.

In true country rugby tradition, the Redbacks always travel with spare footy boots, which were donned by bus driver Cameron Bradley who joined the reserves on the sideline!  

The Tigers started the game with a flurry and went in for an early try followed by 20 minutes of sustained pressure on the Redbacks’ half which was soaked up by courageous defending by the visitors.

As the game went into the latter stages of the first half the Redbacks began to win some ball.

The team proceeded to launch attacking raids of their of their own and were rewarded with a try to outside centre. Robbie Bell scored out wide, which was converted by Ben Howard from the sideline to take the Redbacks into the break with a 7-5 lead.

The second half started with the Redback continuing their attack.

However, the bench was soon called upon with an ankle injury to Glen Payne who was replaced on the wing by our motivated bus driver Cameron Bradley. 

It did not take Cameron long to get into the action nearly bruising his way over for a try out wide from very unselfish pass from halfback Kiwi Hopkins. During this period the Tigers ran in two quick unconverted tries countered with a Redbacks penalty goal by Ben Howard taking the score to the score to 15-10.

The Redbacks then lost five eight Will Hall to a high hamstring tear which brought a backline reshuffle with Isaac Allen moving to half back, Kiwi Hopkins to five eight. Fifty year old coach George Sherriff came out on to the wing, disregarding the fact that all wingers are young and dashing. 

Braidwood then went through another period of sustained pressure. With tiredness setting in the Tigers were rewarded with another unconverted try pushing the score to 20-10.