Parkes lock Dan Ryan and Forbes prop Charlie French helped their NSW Country side kick-off its 2017 representative campaign with a huge win on Sunday and maintain bragging rights over their metropolitan counterparts too.
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Ryan and French were both strong as the Cockatoos ran rampant against traditional rivals NSW Suburban Rugby Union, retaining the Maher-Ross Cup with a dominant 40-7 victory at Camden Rugby Park.
Cockatoos head coach Mat Thomas said he was super impressed with his side considering the lack of time the group had spent together leading into the game, and the fact NSW Country finished with 13 players on the field.
“We were down to 13, just yellow and red cards. There was no foul play, the game was played in really good spirit. It was just repeat infringements, a double yellow card in the one case,” Thomas said, Far North Coast’s Grant Knight and Central Coast’s Ethan McInnes finished the game on the sidelines.
“We just outclassed Subbies. It was pretty impressive what they did considering Subbies had been training for six weeks and we’d trained for an hour-and-a-half.
“Our forward pack was far bigger than theirs and that’s where it really made a difference. We’d take a six-foot-four bloke off, and put another one.
“Our speed, size, strength and intent at the breakdown, I think it was just too much for Subbies.”
Ryan and French impressed in every one of those departments, after coming off the bench in the second and front rows respectively.
“They deserve a really big rap, they both played very well,” Thomas said.
“They both made a big impact coming off the bench, the Subbies guys really struggled with Charlie’s technique at scrum time.”
Taking advantage of a one-man advantage early after Subbies breakaway Steve Morton was sin-binned in the third minute, NSW Country opened the scoring through evergreen flanker and skipper Paul Tuala.
Although Subbies held the Cockatoos out for the remainder of Morton’s stint off, the NSW Country side dominated possession and eventually that told.
Knight spectacularly put Pat Keen over in the 20th minute, before Kevin McNamara and Bleddyn Gant also went over in the first period to lead 26-0 at the half-time break.
The tide didn’t turn in the second half.
Proving the Subbies pack was out of its depth the Cockatoos continued to dominate the scrum, line-out and ruck throughout the second period.
Andrew West and Keen scored second-half tries on the back of that. Woollahra Colleagues’ Charlie Henley did score for Subbies, but it was the only time the metropolitan men managed to cross the stripe.
It was NSW Country’s fourth Maher-Ross Cup win in the last six years and for Thomas, the perfect way to kick-start the side’s campaign.
“It was a good start, but we head down to Canberra next to play Southern Inland and that will be tough, they have a very, very good backline,” Thomas said.
“We’ll see how we go there, but I’m pleased to start with a win.”
Thomas had a tough time picking any stand-outs outside the Central West guns.
“Where do you start? Everyone was good,” he said.
“Paul Tuala was his usual self, he’s been strong for a long time but he is playing the best rugby I’ve seen him play for a few years, our No.8 Travis Brooke was very good too.
“It’s tough to single anyone out too much though, it was an excellent performance all-round.”
NSW COUNTRY COCKATOOS 40 (Pat Keen 2, Paul Tuala, Kevin McNamara, Bleddyn Gant, Andrew West tries; Jack Arthur 5 conversions) def NSW SURBURBAN 7 (Charlie Henley try; Dan Kelly conversion)