Tallon Smith
The Griffith Waratah Tigers have returned the favour for last year’s preliminary final loss with a dominant 48-6 victory over a gallant Hay Magpies side at the Hay Park Oval on Sunday evening.
Waratahs duo Shorne Ngu and Tupou Uhi finished with two tries each as the Griffith side ran in nine four-pointers in the 42-point win, one that saw them move to 4-0 and leaves Hay at 0-5 after five rounds.
Waratah Tigers coach Brett Goldspink said he was impressed with his side’s defensive performance in the victory, but said the Magpies provided tough opposition despite the big scoreline.
“To be fair to Hay they toughed it out and they just kept coming at us, but the most pleasing thing for us was the same as last week, in two games we’ve allowed 12 points, and I think our defence for the whole year has been pretty solid,” he said.
“That is probably an area we had to pick up from last year, because we were pretty soft around the ruck, but we’ve managed to maintain that now and sides actually have to earn the points against us, so to walk away and only have 6 points against us was a great result.”
As a Hay product who went on to achieve NRL and English Super League stardom, Sunday marked the latest homecoming for Goldspink, in his second visit as coach of Waratahs.
When asked about the match, the opposition mentor said it was a bittersweet one, with his side determined to give his hometown Magpies a little bit of “payback” for last year’s preliminary final elimination of the Tigers at a place that holds so many precious rugby league memories for him.
“I have got fond memories of Hay Park Oval, obviously my Dad coached Hay back in the 80s to a premiership, so there’s great people there and I enjoy every time I go back there,” he said.
“It is kind of bittersweet to be honest.
“Personally from a coaching point of view last year to lose the way we did against unfortunately it was Hay in the prelim final, we had a little bit of payback that was due to them, but in saying that Hay is a great town, they love their sport, and they are going through a bit of a tough time at the moment.
“I’m sure if they show that level of what they potentially can do, if they can bring that forward into the weaker sides, they wouldn’t be far away from a win.”
Meanwhile, despite the result on paper, Magpies Director of Coaching Neil-John Nisbet said that he was proud of the effort the Hay side put in against one of the competition heavyweights.
“I thought realistically our boys competed very well, even though the scoreline was 42 points difference, we stuck it to them in certain areas,” he said.
“They are a very good Group 20 side, I don’t think there will be too many teams coming away beating Waratahs this year, it will be a very good side that will beat them.”
“They are a very strong side, well coached, worked our boys over in the ruck area, made us look slow, all that sort of stuff.
“In saying that, I was extremely happy with the effort of our blokes, we finished the game with probably four or five blokes walking around on injuries but not wanting to let the team mates down and they kept on the field and kept plugging away.”
One consistent issue for the Magpies this season has been the side’s discipline, with front rower Jerry Balenawi sent off for an altercation with Ngu during the match.
Nisbet said it is an area the Magpies need to improve quickly if they want to finish the season strongly.
“We played 30 minutes with 12 men, which is a constant issue for the Magpies, we seem to always be getting people sin-binned or sent off, and it’s through our own stupidity,” Nisbet said.
“Last year we sort of eradicated a lot of those issues, but they seem to have come back and arose again, and it seems like now we are constantly going to be playing a man short, so we need to fix those issues.”
Looking around Group 20 at other scores from the weekend, the Yanco-Wamoon Hawks took out their local derby with Leeton 14-10, West Wyalong picked up its second win in a row over TLU 28-18, and the Griffith Black and Whites defeated Yenda 34-20.
