Orange Emus’ No.8 Rob Thorburn bolstered his 35th birthday celebrations significantly on Saturday afternoon, scoring a hat-trick and inspiring the greens’ 13-tries-to-none, 79-0 demolition of an understrength Cowra Eagles at Endeavour Oval.
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Thorburn crossed twice in the opening half as his side shot to a 34-0 lead by the break and once more after it as the ruthless Emus piled on another 45 unanswered points in the second period, the barnstorming back-rower picking up three best and fairest points and his side’s players’ player for his trouble.
Tom Green scored his second double in as many weeks and Lachie Harris grabbed a brace as well, while Matt Findlay, Jake Roberts, Nigel Staniforth, Kyran Bubb, TJ Cunynghame and Scott McLean all crossed the stripe as their side kept its unbeaten start to the season intact.
Incredibly, the greens’ win could’ve been much bigger but for Staniforth’s wayward right boot, Emus’ skipper kicked seven of 13 to leave 12 points out there.
It was a rout that started virtually from the word go too, Cunynghame opened the scoring in the second minute just two phases after the initial kick-off.
Cowra, with at least five regular starters out and a number of second graders backing up, showed plenty of fight and at times threatened with ball in hand, but was simply over-ran.
“Our intensity was way up from last week and that’s what we were really looking for so it was a good win, but I can’t speak highly enough of Cowra’s effort,” Emus coach Paul Ringland said, heaping praise on the trying Eagles.
“They fought hard to be in the top tier and they’re showing that they’ll continue fighting hard to prove why they’re here, because they battled numbers-wise but still put two grades out on the paddock, on the road.
“They could’ve rolled over and forfeited second grade but they didn’t, they deserve a lot of praise for that and we know it’s going to be a very different story when we go over there to play them.
“They actually weren’t that bad [on Saturday] anyway, not 79-nil bad. Honestly, we were just very good. We probably took our foot off the gas a bit at times and got a bit loose but that happens in those broken-play games.
“We didn’t really give Cowra any ball, and when they did have it we defended really, really well.”
Cowra skipper and five-eigth Bill Cummins pretty much echoed those sentiments, and said his side won’t be reading into the result too much, especially considering that level of unavailability will be “a one-off”.
“There was a few boys who played a couple of games so it was a good effort, we were still pretty good in attack but our defence let us down and Emus had a bloody good side,” he said.
“We’ll that slide, with all the injuries and guys out we had I think fielding second and first grade sides this weekend was something we’re really happy about actually.
“There’s momentum in the club and we’re definitely heading in the right direction, it’s just about getting all our guys on the paddock and getting results now.
“The week off this week (for the NSW Country Rugby Union Championships) will help us with those injuries, they’re all little niggles and nothing serious but a week off will be good.
“After that we’ll come back with pretty much a full side to play Orange City at home, so we’ll be right I think it was just a tough weekend.”
ORANGE EMUS 79 (Rob Thorburn 3, Tom Green 2, Lachie Harris 2, Matt Findlay, Jake Roberts, Nigel Staniforth, Kyran Bubb, TJ Cunynghame, Scott McLean tries; Staniforth 7 conv) def COWRA EAGLES 0
