Tallon Smith
The Gundagai Tigers have caused the upset of the 2025 Great Northern Group 9 First Grade season so far with a 30-22 victory over defending premiers Young Cherrypickers at Anzac Park on Sunday.
Last year’s Reserve Grade Grand Final hero Toby Dasey, who returned to the Tigers after initially linking with Junee for this season, scored an early double around a Tom Giles try for the ‘Pickers to give the Tigers an early advantage.
Gundagai extended the margin from there, crossing twice more through Gabriel Gul and Jack Lyons late in the first half to take a 24-6 lead into the break.
Then, in the 52nd minute, Gul fielded a ball near his own line and raced 100 metres to complete his double in a stunning display from the Tigers’ PNG recruit.
From there on, momentum began to shift, and Young scored three tries in the final 10 minutes to improve the scoreline, but it was to be the Tigers’ day at home, with a 30-22 victory handing the Cherrypickers their first loss since round nine of last season when they fell 18-14 to Temora.
Tigers coach Aaron Gorrell said that he was proud of his side’s effort in containing one of the more damaging forward packs in country football, which has spearheaded Young’s success over the past few seasons.
“Their forward pack is probably rated as one of the best in the comp, but our boys dug in, toughed it out, and really just kept turning up and just kept turning them away, so it was a credit to them,” he said.
The other aspect of the game Gorrell knew needed to be improved was the Tigers’ completion rate, which has been their achilles heel of late in some close games.
“The last two weeks we’ve completed at 50 percent,” he said.
“At any level, if you complete like that you’re going to struggle to win games.
“We’ve hung in there and been in there in the end which we had no right to be.
“We knew we had something to work with and we just needed to really concentrate on completions before the game.”
The Gundagai mentor’s focus on completing their sets went as far as simply having one word on the whiteboard in the sheds pre-game.
“Normally I’ve got a few things up on the whiteboard, but today all it was, was ‘completions’, one word, [and] they backed that up,” he said.
“We actually didn’t even watch any video of Young this week, we just wanted to get our own backyard right.
“We knew what they were gonna throw at us with their big forward pack, they played the power game, and we knew we just had to match that.”
As for what the win means for the team, Gorrell said that while it was a strong performance, the Tigers must show up next weekend and back it up when they face Albury at Greenfield Park.
“We can’t get carried away, it’s one game,” he said.
“If you come out next week and get beat, it’s all undone.
“So we’re not getting too far ahead of ourselves, we know we’ve got some work to do, but we’re improving.”
Meanwhile, Tumut got out of jail with a 28-26 win over the South City Bulls at Harris Park to extend their unbeaten start to their 2025 campaign.
After both sides crossed for two tries each to open the game, Matt Byatt crashed over for the Blues to extend their lead to 18-8 after superior goalkicking, only for Jesse Fitzhenry to cut the margin to four going into the break.
Another try saw South City take the lead out of the break, before the Blues responded with a pair of four pointers to Jacob Sturt and Malik Aitken to go back in front.
A late try to Cleve McGhie set up a grandstand finish, but it wasn’t to be in the end, with the Blues holding on for a narrow win.
Temora exposed the fragility of the +47.5 start in Sunday’s Challenge Cup game at Nixon Park, thrashing the Wagga Brothers 88-6.
The Dragons ran in 17 tries to one in a game that could only be described as one-way traffic.
Albury continued their recent run of form with a 52-14 win over Cootamundra at Les Boyd Oval on Saturday.
The 10 tries to three victory elevates the Thunder into the top five, with a 2-1-1 record through the opening four weeks of the competition.
Finally, the Wagga Kangaroos joined the Thunder and Dragons as big winners over the weekend with a 56-0 home thrashing of Junee at Geohex Stadium.
Centre Dakota Ruta crossed for a hat-trick, while fellow centre Ned Cooper and fullback Zeik Foster scored doubles in the massive victory.
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