Cover Photo: Emmy McMahon

Tallon Smith

A strong finish to the first half set up a comfortable victory as Tullibigeal-Lakes United earned its first grand final berth in a decade with a 30-6 triumph over Yanco-Wamoon at the Lake Cargelligo Recreation Ground on Sunday.

After a scoreless first 17 minutes, tries to Ned Phillips, Tristin Johnson and Harry Anderson saw the Sharks take an 18-0 lead into the break, before adding two more tries in the second half to the Hawks’ one to return the favour for their qualifying final loss a fortnight ago.

While the Sharks led for the majority of the match on the way to setting up a premiership-deciding showdown with Griffith Waratahs, TLU co-captain Jaden Kelly said the on-field action was much tougher than the 24-point scoreline suggests.

“I wouldn’t say we controlled the game from start to finish,” he said. 

“The first 20 minutes was a massive arm wrestle, they just kept coming at us all day.

“They were winning the field position, they played really well in the first 20, but we defended pretty well, and to go [in] at 18 points to nil [up] at half time was a really good effort.

“It was good to get in that grind and score some points in the first half and defend the way we did.”

After a frenetic opening, it was a nonchalant charge from Phillips that opened the scoring for the Sharks, before Johnson leapt to take a Bobby Jones kick and double the side’s advantage to 12-0.

A sublime ball from back rower Nathan Morris soon after sent Harry Anderson away down the right touchline, with the winger running around under the posts to score the home side’s third try before the interval.

Michael Mogliotti extended TLU’s lead to 24 to kickstart the second half, before Yanco finally found a reply in the form of a try to centre Caleb Atkinson off a Kobe Vulu grubber.

However, it was simply the Sharks’ day, and when Kelly crossed late to seal the deal, grand final fever began to sweep around the huge crowd as TLU booked its ticket to the big dance for the first time since 2016.

In a strong team effort, the Lakes side had five different tryscorers and a number of key performers across the park.

Kelly said that made it difficult to single out any outstanding players the Sharks’ line-up, but praised the side’s front rowers Dylan Hately and Warren Lloyd, who stood up against the Yanco pack and generated crucial go-forward for the side.

“It’s pretty hard to put anyone on top, but our two front rowers [did] a good job today, they led by example, led from the front,” he said.

“It was pretty much a 17 man effort really, there [were] no passengers and everyone [did] their job.

“That’s all we ask of the boys, is [they] just do their job and if we do it well, we can play well.”

As for what the victory and a grand final return means to the Tullibigeal and Lake Cargelligo faithful, Kelly said the team is just happy to give the communities something to cheer about in return for their ongoing support through a number of tough seasons.

“[It’s] pretty exciting for the community, obviously it’s been a long time, but the community always still gets behind us and supports us really well, and it’s good to give them something to cheer about,” he said.

“Today’s crowd was off the charts, so if you’re winning games of football, you’re going to get massive crowds at Lake, and it feels really good to give them something to cheer about.”

‘A lot of positives’ despite disappointing finish

For the Hawks, the preliminary final defeat brings to a close the club’s most successful season in recent memory.

After pushing Griffith Waratahs all the way in the race for the minor premiership and defeating TLU to set up a major semi final showdown against the Tigers, two consecutive losses on the road were enough to see the side fall short of its first grand final appearance since 2005.

Coach Kye Longford was understandably disappointed with the result, as his side was kept to its lowest points tally of the season, but gave credit to the determined TLU outfit which took the win.

“Unfortunately we just left one of our worst performances for last,” he said.

“Lakes at Lakes are always tough, if you let them get in front on the scoreboard it’s always going to be hard to run home.

“If you can’t beat Lakes at Lakes too, you sort of don’t deserve to be in the grand final, so full credit to them, they earned that opportunity.”

Despite the unsatisfying finish to the campaign however, the season overall proved to be yet another major step in the right direction for the Hawks, with two of the side’s superstar forwards in John Wharepapa-Rawiri and Ulai Oti-Lahood finishing first and second in Friday’s Ray Thorpe Medal count.

It is positives such as these that Longford said show the club is continuing to head in the right direction after returning to the first grade competition last year.

“From a whole season point of view, I think there’s a lot of positives to take out,” he said.

“We’ve gone from recess into scraping into the finals last year, [to] finishing second … the trajectory is there.

“We had those two boys finish one-two in player of the year, we had four in the team of the year, [and] we finished runners-up in the Club Championship, which was pretty impressive.

“To finish three points off the mark there, again it says where the club is at.”

TULLIBIGEAL-LAKES UNITED 30 (Ned Phillips, Tristin Johnson, Harry Anderson, Michael Mogliotti, Jaden Kelly tries; Kelly 5 goals) DEFEATED YANCO-WAMOON 6 (Caleb Atkinson try; Glen Borg goal) at Lake Cargelligo Recreation Ground, Sunday September 13.