Tallon Smith
Four straight tries either side of half time helped the Goulburn City Bulldogs bounce back from a run of three straight losses with a 28-18 victory over the Woden Valley Rams at the Goulburn Workers Arena on Saturday.
After the side’s first-up victory over Gungahlin, the Bulldogs fell to the Queanbeyan Blues, West Belconnen and Belconnen to sit 1-3 heading into the crucial home clash with the Rams on the club’s Old Boys’ Day.
Goulburn coach Adam Taylor said the support of the club’s former players was a big source of motivation for the squad, with a surprisingly large contingent turning out for the match.
“I haven’t seen that many old boys rock up at any club ever, so when they all came down into the sheds and presented jumpers, it gave us an extra reason to win,” he said.
“I felt like we were never in doubt, I thought we were always going to win.”
The Bulldogs opened the scoring through Jay Lualua in the sixth minute, who dived over off a pass from fullback Tyler Cornish after a 40/20 gave the side the upper hand in the field position battle.
The Rams hit back shortly after to take the lead 6-4, before one of three former Woden players in the Goulburn line-up, Shammah Tiumalu, crossed to reclaim the lead for Goulburn near the quarter mark of the game.
That marked the start of a purple patch for the Bulldogs, with another former Ram in Tomasi Bicaka crossing off a right side shift, before Mason Kearney dived over from dummy half off the back of a strong run from Tiumalu to extend the margin to 18-4 at half time.
Reduced to 12 men following the send off of a third former Woden player in Memphis Hennessy, Goulburn’s run continued on the other side of the break when Junior Vatakani scored off a crisp cut-out pass from Josh Latham, before Cambell Willey hit back for Woden Valley to keep them in the match at 22-14.
However, despite the best efforts of the Rams, the game was all but sealed when Vatakani crossed for his second with 10 minutes remaining, with a late try to Woden’s Jackson Stuart leaving the final margin at 10 points.
With the match being the first occasion that the three Goulburn players, as well as the coach himself, faced their former club after moving over the off-season, Taylor said the victory was an enjoyable one for the trio despite Hennessy being sent from the field, with Tiumalu being a standout.
“They enjoyed it, if they were wearing lipstick they would have had lipstick on their ears, the smiles on them,” he said.
“I think because Shammah has been so good for the last couple of weeks he gets a bit overlooked but he was big for us, [he] caused a couple of problems on the edges.
“It was an eventful day, but it was good for those blokes to get one back.”
Another key player for the Bulldogs on Saturday was halfback and former Raider and Rooster Mitch Cornish, who according to Taylor has been “good steering the ship” in the games he has played despite battling injury.
“He showed up a couple of weeks before our first trial against Young, and then he has struggled with a little bit of injury,” Taylor said.
“He played that first game and we lost him with a hamstring, and then he actually tweaked his groin in the warm-up today and was almost not playing, so we are lucky to have him back.
“If he had a full pre-season under his belt, we would be going pretty well at the moment I think.”
Meanwhile, in addition to Tiumalu and Cornish, the coach also praised a number of other lesser known players for their contributions to the victory.
“We have had a few blokes that people haven’t heard much of, Eric Brown, Mitch Latham was good today, Jack Peppernell, he was excellent as well,” Taylor said.
“While we are getting these blokes who aren’t household names stepping up, everyone else is doing their job around them, so it is making it easy for everybody.”
Now sitting in fifth place with a 2-3 record following the weekend’s result, the pressure is on the Bulldogs to continue winning games to remain in the race for a top four spot as the middle of the season approaches.
With a number of injuries and player unavailability being an ongoing battle through the opening part of the year, Taylor said that while finals is the goal the focus is on taking things one week at a time, as boring as the cliche is.
“For us, it is just going to be week to week as boring as that sounds because we have never really had the same side on the field,” he said.
“The side we had in round one was probably our strongest team, and since then we lose three or four, we get a couple back, we lose two, we have just been disrupted with injuries and players getting pulled up to Flegg.”
“I don’t even know how we are going to come out of this game, there [are] still a couple that are dusty out of this one, so we are just taking it week by week and are trying to get better each time.”
Recapping other results from around the grounds in round six of the Canberra Raiders Cup, Queanbeyan Blues made it two wins in a row for the first time this season with a 38-24 victory over Gungahlin, while Queanbeyan Roos outlasted Belconnen 18-10 and West Belconnen defeated Tuggeranong 42-4.
