Toby Dasey with Coach Aaron Gorrell.
The Gundagai Tigers of old were awoken over the weekend, collecting their biggest scalp of the season with a 30-22 win over the Young Cherrypickers.
The Tigers flew out of the traps with local favourite Toby Dasey crashing over the line just two minutes into the game, setting the tone for the afternoon.
The Cherrypickers hit back 10 minutes later through their coach, the top try scorer of Group 9, big Tom Giles, crashing over under the post. Demeio nailed the conversion, and the scores were level.
Dasey once again was the man for the Tigers, with brilliant play down the wing resulting in another Tigers four-pointer. Recruit Gabriel Gul introduced himself to the Gundagai faithful with two meat pies, one being a barn-storming 100 metre effort to put the Tigers firmly in control. In between the Gul brace was a Jack Lyons special, all tries culminating in a whopping 30-6 lead for the Tigers.
The Cherrypickers had a surge late, scoring three late tries, one of which was by Giles, who took his tally to eight for the season. Gundagai’s dominance throughout the game was enough to see them home.
Coach Aaron Gorrell thought his side was near flawless.
“I didn’t think we’d been too far away, even those two games we lost in the past couple of weeks, our completion rate held us back. That was our main focus this week, to make sure we completed at a high rate and didn’t give them too much cheap field position,” Gorrell said.
“We made a couple of errors in our half and that happened, but for the majority of the game I thought we were pretty good and our forwards took it to theirs and that is their strength, their pack, and full credit to our forward pack for doing a job on theirs.
“We knew we had to starve them of the ball and field position and just try to get off our line and put them under pressure, and I think we did that pretty well for 65 minutes.
“I don’t think we had a bad player, but Joel Field was enormous in the middle, Pat Birch too.
“I was happy with the win. It gives us a good gauge of where we are and where we need to go. A few games we’ve had to get in that arm wrestle and push through for mixed results, we beat Temora and then fell short in the next two, but I think those games had us battle ready and our forwards knew that it was going to be their toughest test so far this year, they passed it with flying colours.”
Gorrell was disappointed in his side’s final 10 minutes, but believes that’s how the game goes some-times.
“It’s disappointing to let those in, but if we can come up with that first 70 minutes most weeks, you’ll win. They threw the ball around with nothing to lose and managed to score those late ones, it happens, it would be nitpicking to criticise them,” he continued.
“We are happy with the performance, but we are not getting too carried away either. It’s only one win, we have to back that up now and make sure we make a little bit of a run now through the back half of the season.
“We are going to have to be good again. Albury in Albury is always tough, no matter where they are coming from or how they are going.
“We are going to have to make sure we get back to work on Tuesday and work hard this week. We just have to concentrate on our backyard. We’ve been talking through the last couple of weeks about not worrying about who we are playing.
“Against Kangaroos, we completed below fifty per cent scored four tries, otherwise goal kicking was the difference, and then Tumut we completed about the same, they were up around ninety percent, and we got beaten in the last five minutes.
“We’ve had a lot of positives, and I would rather not lose at all, but if you win those games, you learn the lesson that we have.
“We just have to keep learning, and we are not going to be perfect and not going to play perfect footy, but as long as we keep improving throughout the year, I think we will be tough to beat.
“James Morgan should be back, so there’s some quality to come back in, and I think Royce Tout is the week after.
“As a Club as a whole, I think we are starting to get to where we need to be, and it’s good. We always need competition for positions.
“I don’t think there’s a First Grade side throughout the year that isn’t going to have to call upon those Reserve Grade players. We are more of a squad, and I say to my blokes every week, “We will be picking the 17 that deserve a spot in First Grade”. You don’t want people sitting up in First Grade thinking they are comfortable, and it’s a given that they are going to get picked.
“To have a healthy Club, have a healthy First Grade side, you need a good Reserve Grade side. We need competition and people snapping at the heels of the blokes in front of them and wanting to be up there. I think we’ve got all that at the moment, and it’s only getting better, but again, we can’t get too carried away.
“Dasey was with us last year and went to Junee during the off season to look for an opportunity and that didn’t eventuate and he came back and we’ve had a few injuries in the last couple of weeks and he’s come in and he played well last week and he was good again on the weekend.
“That’s another player that is now pushing people and sticking his hand up to be picked week in, week out, and that is exactly what we need. He’s got a lot of speed, and that is what has scored him both tries. I think the Club is in a healthy position.
“It’s probably the worst part about coaching, telling someone they are going back down or not playing that week. It’s part of the job, but I’d rather have that headache than scratching around looking for players. I’m happy to have to make those rough phone calls or have those rough chats where I need to, as it means the Club is going okay.” Gorrell said.
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