Cover Photo: Krista Schade/The Riverine Grazier
Tallon Smith
Hay’s turnaround in Group 20 continued on Sunday with the Magpies recording a second straight victory with a 40-28 triumph over the Griffith Black and Whites at the Hay Park Oval.
The result follows the side’s last start win over Yenda at Wade Park by the exact same scoreline, elevating the Magpies to six points alongside the Blueheelers and giving the club a stronger chance of avoiding the wooden spoon.
Hay Magpies Director of Coaching Neil-John Nisbet said the results are a reward for the team, which suffered a number of close defeats to start the season and has struggled with injury and player unavailability so far this season.
“It has been a great effort from the boys that have actually put in the hard work,” he said.
“The difference between the start of the year and now is we do have a couple of extra players playing, but also a lot of the boys have actually started to cut out their mistakes, their stupid penalties.
“They still give away a few of those every now and then, but there is not as many as what we were doing at the start of the year, and obviously it pays results for us, because when they do cut that sort of stuff out, we actually can play half-decent footy and that is what we are after.
“A few of the boys that were down a little bit on form at the start of the season have really started to hit their straps now, and we are actually scoring some really great team tries.”
A major boost for the Magpies in recent weeks has been centre Andrew Solo, who crossed for two tries in his second outing for Hay after making his debut for the club against Yenda.
Nisbet said the new signing has had an immediate impact, with his style of play proving troubling to opposition defences.
“He’s had a huge impact because he has got a lot of speed and he’s tough,” he said.
“He is a very solid defender and he certainly uses his pace.
“It would be very hard to coach against that sort of player because he always just seems to play off the cuff, and if you are going to play off the cuff, you can’t put too much structured defence around them because you don’t know what is really going to happen.”
Solo’s presence has also eased the pressure on fellow strike centre Rex Rokosusu, with the benefit of having two attacking threats on either side allowing his centre partner to also reap the rewards with a hat-trick on Sunday backing up a brace the week earlier.
“That is the main bonus of having Andrew here, we don’t always have to go to Rex, our options are both sides of the field,” he said.
“If you spread it one way you can always come back to the opposite side, so either one of them can crack the line.
“Rex’s last two games have been back to last season’s form.”
Looking at other results from around Group 20 over the weekend, the Tullibigeal-Lakes United Sharks celebrated their joint sponsors day, Indigenous round and Old Boys’ day in style with a 66-6 win over Yenda, while Yanco-Wamoon outclassed West Wyalong 60-0.
The result of the DPC-Leeton game from Saturday remains listed as to be confirmed by the group.
