Tallon Smith
The Griffith Waratah Tigers have survived an almighty scare to keep their unbeaten record alive after escaping with a 24-22 victory over West Wyalong at the Exies Oval on Sunday.
The Tigers maintained their 14-12 half-time advantage to record a narrow two-point victory, in a stark contrast to the 62-0 mercy rule thrashing the side gave the Mallee Men last season in a shortened 55-minute match at the same venue.
Waratahs coach Brett Goldspink said his side performed nowhere near its best in the match, and was pushed all the way by its more disciplined opponents.
“We’re getting good at it, I think we have got a habit, we virtually play two good games and one bad one, and I think we probably saved our worst one for West Wyalong,” he said.
“To their credit, looking at their stats, they had an 80 percent completion rate West Wyalong, they are a well-drilled team, so whether they made us make mistakes, I wasn’t too sure, but it definitely wasn’t one of our better days.
“I think we had a 56 percent completion rate, so to win the game obviously shows that we have got a lot of grit to get over the line.
“We managed to get there, a bit to and fro the whole match, but at the end of the day we got the result, we won’t talk about that game too much, and we will move on to next week.”
The Waratah Tigers opened the scoring through Willie Lolohea off a grubber from his brother Moses, before West Wyalong skipper Luke Clarke put in a delicate kick of his own for Logan Collins to level the scores at 6-all.
Tigers winger Ulu Akolo crossed next with the first of his two tries, before David White hit back to put the Mallee Men ahead 12-10 in the blow for blow encounter.
Akolo’s second soon after put the Griffith side back in front leading into half time, before centre Shorne Ngu added another on the other side of the break for an 18-12 lead.
Not about to give in, West Wyalong fought back once again, with Max Lawson and Dylan McCartney both scoring to put the visitors back in front 22-18.
In the end, it was a Moses Lolohea try nine minutes from full time sealed the deal for the Tigers for a 24-22 win, although a controversial decision saw the Mallee Men denied by a held-up call after a late effort saw the side cross under the posts, leaving many in the West Wyalong camp frustrated.
Despite the win, Goldspink said the side has a number of areas which they will need to improve in heading into this weekend’s clash with third-placed Leeton, with defence being a focus.
“We know we can score points, I was just a bit disappointed that we had 20-odd points scored against us,” Goldspink said.
“We had a couple of key players out, which didn’t help us, but we can’t use that as an excuse.
“I think it just comes down to attitude and the will to turn up on the day and play your good footy, and unfortunately we didn’t do that.
“We obviously had the will to win and that got us over the line, but I just expect more from them.”
However, although the clash was ultimately closer than he would have liked it to be, Goldspink said Waratahs will take a number of learnings out of the match and the determination the side showed to emerge victorious.
“There [have been] probably three games this year that were very similar, I think Leeton in the second round of the comp, and then against Lakes, a bit of different circumstances where they came back at us, but I think it is good for us really,” he said.
“You don’t want to have these 60-10 scorelines, you don’t get much out of that, whereas [when] you have these hard games, you learn to be in these situations [and] I think you learn a lot more about the team.”
Looking at other results around Group 20 this weekend, Yanco-Wamoon remains just one game behind Waratahs after a 30-8 victory over the Griffith Black and Whites, while Darlington Point-Coleambally returned to form emphatically with a 46-8 win against Yenda and Tullibigeal-Lakes United put on a show in a 60-4 triumph over Hay.
