Tallon Smith
The return of star playmaker Daniel Foley lifted Junee to a 36-22 come-from-behind victory over the Cootamundra Bulldogs in a crucial match between the fifth and sixth placed sides at Les Boyd Oval on Sunday.
Missing since the side’s round three loss to Young, Foley lined up for the Diesels at halfback as they overturned an early 10-0 deficit to secure a 14-point victory.
Junee coach Damian Willis described the veteran playmaker’s return as a “massive” boost for the side in the rivalry round showdown.
“The bloke, he’s mercurial, it’s not only what he does off the footy, it’s what he does with the leadership he provides for our footy club,” Willis said.
“He is probably one of the footy club’s best players in the last 15 years.
“I kept it [his return] prettyquiet, I didn’t want to let too many people know that Fole was ready to rock and roll.
“Me and him had some conversations about what he was going to do, and how we were going to manage him and what it was going to look like in terms of his footy today, and if we were successful enough and could get in front enough, then I was going to get him off and wrap him up in cotton wool for next week, which is a big weekend for us with our 100 year celebration, and our 40 years of first grade, reserve grade and under 18s winning the comp.
“I didn’t really want him to miss that game of footy, and I know that he has been doing everything he can to get back for that.
“I just wanted to get some miles in the legs for him and make sure he is ready to rock and roll next weekend.”
Facing a 10-0 deficit early after tries to Cootamundra’s Sam Bragg and Brendan Kelleher, the Diesels dominated the match from there on in, with the visitors piling on seven tries to emerge with the two competition points.
After an inconsistent past month comprising two wins and two losses, Willis said there were still patches of football that needed improvement, but once Junee gained momentum, the side made the most of its advantage.
“For us, we speak about completing early and completing high and all that sort of stuff and we just seem to have let Cootamundra back into the game a number of times,” he said.
“It was 10-0 down [after] about 15 [or] 20 minutes, and then we finally kicked into gear, completed a few sets, got some momentum and [went] into [half time] 16-10 up.
“There was a lot of resilience from the boys and they did some really good things, for us, we struggled early, and once the game opened up a little bit, we are very good in the back end of that.
“One of our biggest problems is we can’t just continue to put all of that together consistently, we might be able to play 60 minutes of it, and then there’s 20 minutes that put us on the back foot, which was probably our first 20 today, and the 60 minutes following that was really good.”
Junee will face Young in its centenary celebration and 1986 triple premiership reunion match at Laurie Daley Oval on Sunday, with the NSW Blues coach expected to be in attendance.
JUNEE 36 (Tevita Toloi 2, Stuart Dunbar, Daniel Foley, Chase Bernard, Cooper Wright, name private tries; Dunbar 4 goals) DEFEATED COOTAMUNDRA 22 (Sam Bragg, Brendan Kelleher, Tai Vaavale, Ned Murray tries; Kelleher 2, James Paterson goals) at Les Boyd Oval, Saturday July 11.
