By Tallon Smith

The Darlington Point-Coleambally Roosters flipped the script after their two Grand Final losses in the past two seasons to take out the 2024 Group 20 First Grade Premiership with a 46-12 win over the Griffith Black and Whites at Solar Mad Stadium on Sunday.

The 34-point victory is the largest First Grade Grand Final margin in Group 20’s 70 year history, eclipsing the Waratahs’ 30-point margin in their 32-2 victory against Leeton in 1967.

The Roosters started the match strongly, with Luke Hogan winning the race to the football after Black and Whites fullback Solo Toru dropped a DPC bomb.

With their opponents on the backfoot, DPC continued to cash in on their early advantage with three more first half tries to Ray Thorpe Medallist Guy Thompson, a second to Hogan, and another to hooker Tom Fattore.

As the match looked to be quickly fading from the Black and Whites’ grasp, five-eighth Jarrad Williams stepped up to stem the bleeding and finally return serve for the Panthers with a try leading into the break, leaving the half-time score at 24-6.

The comeback was short lived however, with DPC winger Phillip Hunter the next to cross the line, before further insult to injury was added for the Black and Whites when second-rower Paula Naidike was sin binned.

Firebrand centre Joey Peato was the next to get in on the try scoring action, followed by another to centre partner Jack Lyons and a second to Fattore, as the Roosters piled on the points in the second half to lead 46-6.

Jarrad Williams, who was definitely among the Griffith outfit’s best in defeat, scored his second in a consolation effort to put his side into double figures, but in the end, it was DPC’s day, with the Roosters’ victory the largest Grand Final victory the largest in any grade since Yanco-Wamoon’s 50-12 thrashing of Waratahs in the 2009 Under 18s decider.

Luke Hogan took home the Barry Hails Medal for being adjudged best on ground after a strong performance for the Roosters at fullback.

Darlington Point-Coleambally President Tony Leadbitter said that the premiership win is huge for the club and both towns.

“It’s huge for everyone, for the players, the communities, and all the sponsors,” he said.

“It’s just a lot of hard work, over a number of years, not just the last four years, but leading up to that [in our] club rebuild.

“We’ve been in a strong position now for the last five or six years.”

Having lost the last two Grand Finals to a fast-starting Leeton outfit, Leadbitter said that it was part of the Roosters’ game plan to set the pace in Sunday’s match as they desperately looked to avoid a third successive defeat.

“It was definitely discussed because the last couple of years we’ve sort of come out and Leeton have shot out to a lead,” he said.

“If you go back even further you’ll see in 2019 when we won [against Waratahs] we actually shot out to a bit of a lead that day too. 

“It definitely was discussed to come out strong, not necessarily [to] score points, but at least to come out strong in the first 20 [minutes].

“Running into the wind was difficult on the day, and then also the penalty count was a blowout in the first half, so they had to overcome a fair bit to do what they did in the first half, and it couldn’t have worked out much better really.”

Despite having the second-smallest population base in the competition (only TLU is smaller), the Roosters have had sustained success over the past decade, with Leadbitter believing that the smaller size of the club and the fact that many of the Reserve Graders were forced to back up for First Grade at various points to cover injuries makes its triumph even sweeter.

“It’s difficult to put it into words, but when you’re competing against nearby towns with such large populations, I guess it just adds more weight to what we’ve actually achieved over the last five or six years,” he said. 

“In regards to the points systems that have been put in place, we had a number of local players who were zero point players get injured [and] we had heaps of injuries coming through the middle part of the season.

“Unfortunately a lot of the local guys were actually injured which impacted heavily on us in First Grade especially, so it really meant that First Grade and Reserve Grade nearly combined to form one squad for the whole back end of the year.

“I think First Grade used in excess of 40 players throughout the year, which is nearly unheard of and it obviously caused difficulties in the back end of the year.”

As for the communities and how they have marked the occasion, Leadbitter said they showed tremendous support for the team throughout the week, and that the celebrations would be extended to all of the community.

“You can see around the towns, everyone gets behind it [by] putting streamers up around town, [and] decorating their businesses,” he said.

“I spoke to a few people since the weekend that reckon there was in excess of 100 people at the Coleambally club watching it on the live stream.

“Everyone’s well aware that it’s their club and the towns own the club, and everyone’s very passionate.”

The win marks DPC’s sixth First Grade premiership, after their previous triumphs in 1980, 1983, 1987, 1988 and 2019, the former four of which featured sides containing multiple members of “The Battler’s” family.

Cover Photo Credit: The Area News

Finals Chart – Completed