THERE was no breaking through the Blayney Bears' rock solid defensive wall on Sunday as the side put themselves within one win of the Western Premiership Reserve Grade grand final.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Bears came away from Wade Park with a 20-6 win over St Pat's, keeping the Bathurst men off the scoreboard for all but the last three minutes of the semi-final clash.
Pat's had come into the game having put 62 points past the Parkes Spacemen a week earlier but they had no answer for a Bears defence who were switched on from the opening minute.
Bears player-coach Alex Pettit said the defensive effort was a great way to bounce back from a tough 39-14 loss to Dubbo CYMS a week earlier.
"It's such a good turnaround for us because we let in quite a few points last week, so to only concede six and score a few was great. It was impressive," he said.
"That's got to be up there for us as one of our best games. It's probably our most complete performance of the year. We turned up for the full 70 minutes.
"For a little town like Blayney this is great. We've gone a long time without success so from the last couple of years to now be playing finals footy is so good. Everyone is behind us."
Saints five eighth Cooper Neilsen said there was a different energy about the team compared to the previous week's big win at Carrington Park.
"In the middle we got a bit slow, might have been a bit of an attitude thing. We were just depleted at the end of the day," he said.
"I think that mid year spell of not having the boys there didn't help us. We never got that 'click' back. That's what reserve grade is for though - bringing boys up. It's hard, but that's just reserve grade football."
Bears opened their account on their first set of the match when Pettit capped off a strong running set of six from his side.
It was an early warning sign sent out by the coach, who had just been named the Group 10 reserve grade player of the season on Friday night.
Blayney kept the points coming less than a minute later when Nic Barlow brushed aside several defenders during his 50m run to the try line, making it 10-0.
The Saints invited their opponents back downfield with several penalties and were fortunate not to give away another try when a would-be scoring pass was called forward.
A 40-20 got Pat's out of trouble but they couldn't turn the field position into points.
Poor discipline started to creep in to the Bears' game deeper into the first half but once again the Saints failed to open their account, dropping the ball less than 10 metres away from the try line on three occasions.
Pat's had promising moments during the early stages of the second half but again couldn't breach the Bears line, and the match continued to move up and down both ends of the field.
Bears continued to make strong metres through the middle and that laid the platform for the team to find two more tries midway through the half - pushing the match out of the Saints' reach.
Daniel Pentecost scored the first of those on the left wing and Zack Farr broke through the defensive line from close distance put the result beyond doubt.
Pat's avoided being held to nil thanks to a Cam Dennis try out of dummy half three minutes out from full-time.
Bears will now take on the Cowra Magpies for a place in the grand final.
BLAYNEY BEARS 20 (Alex Pettit, Nic Barlow, Daniel Pentecost, Zac Farr tries; Jackson Carter 2 conversions) defeated ST PAT'S 6 (Cam Dennis try; Cooper Neilsen conversion)
- Reading this on mobile web? Download our news app. It's faster, easier to read and we'll send you alerts for breaking news as it happens. Download in the Apple Store or Google Play.