Photo: Tahlia Crane.
The Gundagai Tigers tasted bitter defeat against their arch rival Tumut Blues over the weekend. A slow start and a lapse in concentration towards the back end of the game sealed the Tigers fate and put them in a not-so-familiar position, having lost more games than they’ve won early in the season.
Coach Aaron Gorrell was disappointed in his sides performance.
“We didn’t start great, we kicked off straight out on the full. We were under the pump from the word go. We dropped bombs in a row on the try line and just gave them some field position and they skipped out to a 12-0 lead and we clawed our way back and I thought we did some really good stuff but just fell short in the end, you know we got back to 18-all and then had a bit of a lapse and let in a try,” Gorrell said.
“We had James Morgan and Eparama Navuki out, and that’s our go-to attack, and Eparama scored three tries last week, and Morgs probably put him in for them.
“I thought we created enough opportunity to win the game, but we just came up with some wrong options and sometimes took the easy options to make up for the lapse in concentration and let in a couple of easy tries.
“It’s not all bad. Everything that we need to improve on is individual, it’s not a collective thing that can’t be fixed. I think it’s just more of a concentration thing and playing for eighty minutes.
“Jacob Sturt probably did the most for them. He got their sets rolling and was strong through the middle.
“Their halfback made us pay. His kicking game was on point. We just allowed him to do that, and you can’t afford to give kickers so much time to execute where they want to kick and have no pressure on them.
“We missed those two blokes a fair bit. Eparama comes up with a lot of carries from our end, and Morgs unites our attack. I thought our concentration and attention to detail probably lacked a bit on the weekend, but in saying that, to think how bad we think we were to only lose a game in the last couple of minutes, there’s a lot of positives, and we need to make sure we learn from it. We can’t afford to keep saying the same thing week in, week out. It’s happened two weeks in a row, and we’ve come up short by four and six points consecutively.
“We just need to make sure that those two games that I think we should have won don’t come back to bite us at the end of the year.”
The tough draw continues for Gundagai this week when they host Young on Sunday.
“Fingers crossed that Eparama will be right and we will find out when we get Morgs to do a little bit of work and see how it’s coming along, if he’ll play. If we can add them and fix those couple of lapses that we had and it should be a good game on Sunday,” he continued.
“Going off the start of this year and going off what they came up with last year, we are going to have to be good in every area. They have a very good pack, a smart half-back, so we are going to have to limit their go forward from their forwards and just keep our eye on Tommy Demeio and make sure that we do everything and play how we want.
“Nobody is unbeatable, and this week I think we can win. We just need to execute and play for the full eighty minutes.
“Hayden Ashcroft and Pat Birch were massive for us. It was Pat’s first game for us, and Hayden played another full eighty minutes in the middle. They are both great additions to the Club.
“We don’t play a couple of the bottom teams twice; we play all the top teams twice, but it is what it is. You have to play everyone to win the comp, and I think it’s a good way to start the season. It gives you a good indication of where you are, and we have got to make sure that those two teams that have knocked us over the last two weeks, we get them the next time we play them.
“If we improve in those areas that we’ve spoken about, I think we will. We have just got to keep building. We knew we were going to stack the team a little bit slow, and we are playing all the top teams straight up.
“I’m not too worried about where we are sitting. You’d like to win every game, but the reality is it doesn’t always happen. We just need to learn from a few areas where we’ve gone wrong and make sure we keep improving each week, and make sure we beat all the sides that are below us and then get those wins on the teams that have knocked us over the last two weeks.”
Elsewhere in Group 9 the Young Cherrypickers welcomed Cootamundra back to Alfred Oval, sending the Dogs back to Coota with a 40 point loss, the Dragons beat the Diesels by a similar margin, Albury kept Wagga Brothers misery fresh thrashing them by 60 and the Wagga Kangaroos made it 3/3 with a win against South City.
Group 9 Ladder.
1. Young Cherrypickers, 6pts, 116.
2. Wagga Kangaroos, 6pts, 58.
3. Tumut Blues, 5pts, 12.
4. Temora Dragons, 4pts, 30.
5. Albury Thunder, 3pts, 20.
6. Gundagai Tigers, 2pts, 2.
7. Junee Diesels, 2pts, -4.
8. South City Bulls, 2pts, -22.
9. Cootamundra Bulldogs, 0pts, -70.
10. Wagga Brothers, 0pts, -142.
Group 9 Draw
Saturday May 10 – Sunday May 11. Gundagai Tigers vs Young Cherrypickers Sunday 2:35 pm at Anzac Park. Cootamundra Bulldogs vs Albury Thunder. Wagga Kangaroos vs Junee Diesels. South City Bulls vs Tumut Blues. Temora Dragons vs Wagga Brothers.
-Tully Potts
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