Cover Photo: Hayley Robertson/Junee Diesels
Tallon Smith
A controversial late penalty goal to five-eighth Stu Dunbar has seen the Junee Diesels emerge victorious 22-21 over the Wagga Kangaroos at Laurie Daley Oval on Saturday.
After being awarded a penalty by referee Sean Byatt, the Diesels elected to give Dunbar the shot at the ultimately decisive goal, despite the infringement being a differential penalty.
Speaking in the hours after the match, and before the ultimately withdrawn appeal by Wagga Kangaroos was first lodged, Diesels assistant coach Damian Willis said his side was lucky to win the match after a poor overall showing.
“It was a great escape for us to be brutally honest,” he said.
“A lot of the stuff we did wrong was stuff we can control, like getting on the footy early, holding our shape, and unforced errors.
“I think the boys scrambled really well, our defence was good, but we just let ourselves down.”
After keeping the ball alive on the last play, a flick pass from Diesels centre found Stu Dunbar to open the scoring, before the Kangaroos hit back with two quick tries through a powerful run from Oliver Hoskin and an opportunistic runaway try to Hayden Jolliffe after a James Smart kick was left to bounce.
Dakota Ruta then extended the visitors lead to 16-6 five minutes before half time, only for Junee to hit back through Jakeem Morgan in the shadows of the break to reduce the gap to six.
The Roos resumed the scoring in the second stanza when Tyler Jordan pounced on a Zeik Foster grubber for a 20-16 lead, until the Diesels hit back with two tries when Dunbar repaid Toloi for the opening try with a crisp pass to send him over in the 61st minute and repeated the dose with a long ball to winger Jeffrey Featherstone in the 68th.
With the scores locked at 20-all, Smart added a field goal to put the Wagga side ahead 21-20 with just over four minutes to play, before Dunbar stepped up to nail the clutch match-winning kick.
When asked about his thoughts when Dunbar was lining up the kick, Willis said he was always confident the former national rugby union sevens representative would slot the 31m shot.
“I didn’t think there was too much pressure on Stu, because he has got plenty of steel in him, so when we got the penalty I knew Stuey would be able to make that kick,” he said.
“Myself and Daniel Foley were on the sidelines, and he was a little further away than I was and I could see he was on his haunches.
“I think that a lot of that comes down to the practice he does week in, week out.
“He is down at the field 15-20 minutes early, he does his kicks, and he is an ultimate professional.
“You can imagine playing for the Wallabies in the sevens competitions all the high-pressure situations he has been in and the crowd that he has played in front of, you couldn’t have asked for a better bloke to steal the win from Kangaroos, which is fantastic for us.”
Looking at other results from round nine of Group 9, the Young Cherrypickers denied Wagga Brothers a second win in two weeks 34-32, while Temora downed Tumut 20-10, Gundagai defeated Cootamundra 20-12, and South City bettered Albury 20-10.
Group 20: Deja vu as Greenies end Waratah Tigers’ unbeaten run
The Leeton Greenies have ended Griffith Waratahs’ nine-game unbeaten start to the year with a 14-10 victory at the Exies Oval on Saturday.
A three-from-three performance with the boot from Jay Latu proved the diffeerence in the two-tries-all affair, with the visitors ending the Tigers’ winning streak in similar fashion to last season’s 31-14 victory at the Leeton No.1 Oval in round 13.
Leeton coach Billy Dickinson said the result was a “big win” for the club after its previous 20-18 loss to the Tigers in round two, as it battles with Waratahs and Yanco-Wamoon for the Minor Premiership.
“That first game at Leeton, we thought we could have beaten them then, and we probably just let that one slip, so to get the win today was brilliant for us,” he said.
“We talked about it for our season, trying to get top two, that was a massive game for us, and we did it, so very happy with that.”
Other results from round 11 saw Hay pick up its first win of the year 40-28 over Yenda, while the Tullibigeal-Lakes United Sharks defeated the Griffith Black and Whites 24-18, and Darlington Point-Coleambally returned the favour for its big round two loss with a 44-24 win over West Wyalong.
