ORANGE City coach Mick Gray remained upbeat following his side’s second successive Blowes Menswear Cup loss on Saturday, insisting his troops can pull together in time to challenge Dubbo Kangaroos in this weekend’s highly-anticipated grand final replay.
The Lions fell 43-28 to a committed CSU outfit at Waratah Sportsground, with the students’ enthusiastic second half effort prompting co-coach Andrew Gordon to declare his charges as “finals contenders”.
City again turned over the ball at regular intervals and were fortunate to take an 18-17 lead into the interval.
But in a tight second half, CSU matched their bigger opponents up front to cling to a narrow lead, before two tries in the final three minutes saw the score line blow out in the deserved win.
Gordon was impressed with the composure of his troops under relentless Lions pressure late in the game.
“It was a terrific win. We’ve had a bit of a disjointed start to the season in many respects but things are starting to come together now that we are concentrating on the fundamentals and getting them right,” he said.
“I definitely think this team can be finals contenders.”
Gray was also positive after the clash, which he believed could have gone either way in the dying stages.
“It was a much better performance than last week. I thought we could have won it in the second half but we just took a few wrong options,” he said.
“We had to shuffle a few guys out of position and that probably led to a few bad defensive reads for their last couple of tries, which blew out the score line a bit.
“We’ve got lots to work with ahead of the grand final replay in Dubbo.”
The Lions got off to an ideal start with a fourth-minute try to back rower Chris Barrett followed up soon after by a scintillating 70m effort from winger Daniel Sandford, which piloted the home side to a 12-nil lead after 13 minutes.
But CSU hit back through powerful centre Dom Maley just three minutes later, with Tim White’s opportunistic runaway try in the 26th minute following a great bounce from an attempted charge down helping to diminish the importance of two Sam Coote penalty goals, as the visitors went into the sheds just one point in arrears.
The students looked in a dominant mood after Matt Boylan-Smith barged over from close range just four minutes into the second half - but another five-pointer to Sandford out wide shortly after reduced the deficit to just one.
CSU again threatened to pull away when five-eighth Jeff Stewart scored in the 54th minute to extend the score line to 31-23 but City refused to go away, speedy fullback Pat Russell setting up a grandstand finish when he crashed over in the 75th minute.
However, the young Bathurst outfit showed enormous composure under pressure as City searched for a late winner - and were rewarded as White and Maley bagged their second tries late in the piece to seal a deserved win.
Gordon heaped praise on his side’s forwards after the club’s third win of 2008.
“I thought our front row did really well. Our young halfback (White) played great and Dom Maley at (number) 13 was a big threat all game. It was just a pleasing effort all-round today,” he said.
n In other games Bathurst thrashed Parkes 57-0, Narromine outclassed Cowra 62-28 and Dubbo Kangaroos won bragging rights over Dubbo Rhinos with a 26-6 win.
CSU 43 (Dom Maley 2, Tim White 2, Matt Boylan-Smith, Jeff Stewart tries; Matthew Coote 5 conv, pen goal) def ORANGE CITY 28 (Daniel Sandford 2, Pat Russell, Chris Barrett tries; Sam Coote conv, 2 pen goals).