TOM Green showed he knows how to finish off a try when he scored four of them in Orange Emus’ 65-17 Blowes Clothing Cup win over Mudgee on Saturday.
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Green scored one five-pointer in the opening half to help Emus to their 41-3 lead at the break at Endeavour Oval.
The winger was over the stripe 38 seconds into the second half and also scored his side’s final two tries, within two minutes, to push Emus to the 48-point victory at Endeavour Oval.
However the match wasn’t as one-sided as the score suggests and it left Emus’ coaching team frustrated.
“Probably with 10 minutes to go we were pretty unhappy but we were glad we dug ourselves out of that patch and finished off in the last 10 minutes,” assistant coach Paul Ringland said.
“We probably just dropped off in intensity a little bit. We probably thought we’d earned the right to take it a bit easy by scoring reasonable amount of points in the first half, and we went away from what’s worked for us.
“It just shows how strong this comp is, if you just let off a little bit, you’re going to struggle.
“Mudgee really stepped up and showed their potential.”
Emus were up 5-3 after six minutes thanks to a Tim Alison try, before Tom Roberts kicked a penalty goal for Mudgee.
From there, Nigel Staniforth (2), Chris Bailey, Rob Thorburn, Green and Andrew Cosgrove helped Emus to lead 41-3 by half-time.
Green ensured Emus started well in the second period with his second try of match, but then the men in green seemed to drop back a gear.
The Wombats’ forwards, even though out-muscled in the scrums, dug in and did a mountain of work.
In the backs, Mudgee proved you cannot throw a loose pass around them as they’re always ready to pounce and turn it into a scoring opportunity.
A key moment for Mudgee was when they scored consecutive tries in the second half.
With Emus leading 46-3, Tom Roberts delivered a beautiful pass for Beau Sandford to go through a gap and score 12 minutes into the second half, and Roberts converted.
It was another 15 minutes before Mudgee were on the board again but it was worth waiting for.
Young winger Mick Tame intercepted a pass on the halfway line and sprinted away to score before Roberts added the extras.
This seemed to be a key moment for Emus as well as the two five-pointers kicked them back into gear and they piled on three tries in the last seven minutes to secure the comfortable victory.
“The score doesn’t reflect the size of the Mudgee boys’ hearts. The definitely stuck to it and there were glimpses of brilliance,” Mudgee assistant coach George Hamilton said.
“It was very good considering a lot of them had already played a game before. With a lot of blokes backing up, it was a pretty good effort.”
Second rower Rupert Sheridan was strong for Mudgee before coming off late in the game with injury.
Inside centre Matt Tuck was also dangerous and not afraid to look for an intercept.
Ringland praised prop Brandon Akerstrom and five-eighth Adam Perri for their solid games.
ORANGE EMUS 65 (Tom Green 4, Nigel Staniforth 2, Tim Alison, Chris Bailey, Rob Thorburn, Andrew Cosgrove, Simon Badgery tries; Adam Perri 2 conv, Sam Ryan 3 conv) def MUDGEE WOMBATS 17 (Beau Stanford, Mick Tame tries; Tom Roberts 2 conv, pen goal).