With only 15 players and no bench Redbacks were in for a tough match for round two against last year’s finals winners, the Crookwell Doggies.
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To make things unnecessarily harder, our jetlagged coach made the minor mistake of only running on 14 players for the first seven minutes of the game! Nice one George!
Luckily as the game progressed we had a few late arrivals half way through the first half which gave us a bench of three players.
The match was played at a hectic pace from the start.
Crookwell put together a succession of relentless phases of play which our 14 players doggedly defended.
We counter attacked at every opportunity but managed to spill the ball after a lot of hard work to undo the recaptured territory.
With the wind coming from behind us in the first half we had a lot of opportunities to kick our way out of trouble but due to poor field positioning and pressure from Crookwell’s fast backs we were unable to capitalise on this advantage.
By half time we had conceded three tries, one of which occurred when we had an unfortunate 10 minute sin binning for a reckless tackle which put us back to 14 players.
After a few words from the colourfully clad, coach George Sherriff and Club President, Tony Cairns, the lads headed into the second half with two players permanently off injured and no replacements.
In the first 10 minutes Crookwell scored again and we once again were reduced to 14 players as the injuries mounted.
The Redbacks tenaciously defended for the last 20 minutes of the match with some bone crunching defence which saw the Crookwell bench getting a solid work out as well.
On one of the Doggies raids in our half they spilt the ball and young gun, Harry Shoemark, swept on the loose ball, ducked, weaved and bludgeoned his way for the length of the field to score, much to the delight of the Braidwood supporters and players.
Crookwell ran out winners 3605 against a very weary, but satisfied Redbacks squad that had played half the match with 14 men. An absolute mighty effort under very trying conditions.
Thanks very much to the hardy supporters who braved the very strong windy conditions to cheer our local lads at the Rec.
Awards
‘Players Player’
- One point to Ben Howard who had a very strong game in both defence and attack
- Two points to Angus Sherriff, who was one of the first to the break down all day
- Three points to other second rower Cade Graff who brutally pounded the ball up field all day
‘Chicks Pick’ went to Harry Shoemark.
