Thoroughbreds Round 4

By David Casson 

The welcome rain on Saturday was not enough to dampen the spirits of the Scone Thoroughbreds who recorded three convincing wins over the visiting Denman Club.

First Grade won 84 to nil, Under 18’s 34 to 10 and Ladies League Tag, 70 to nil.

Ladies League Tag:

The Ladies League Tag saw a dominant game from the Scone girls who converted a 34:0 half time score to 70:0 at the final whistle.

Scoring commenced in the 3^rd minute when Zoe Harper backed a Sofie Casson break to go in near the posts.

Another six tries followed in the first half with Sofie Casson scoring three, Zoe Harper picking up a second, and Maddy Adams crossing.

Charmaine Bloomfield had her kicking boots on converting five of the six.

Second half was more of the same with tries to Charmaine Bloomfield, Maddy Adams adding another two (three in total) and Sofie Casson, another three for a six try haul.

Bloomfield also converted each try for 11 conversions.

Coach Casson acknowledged the efforts of her girls particularly in defence – “we didn’t give Denman any room to move today and most of our tries came from solid teamwork in attack.

Denman are a young team and it is great to see so many of them turning up to play and really trying hard.

Under 18’s:

Match of the Day was clearly the Under 18’s with the 16:10 scoreline at half time reflecting a close tussle.

Denman were first to cross early in the match, however the welcome return of Lachlan Walmlsey from Newcastle Knights commitments was demonstrated when he pounced on his own chip kick to level the scores.

Caleb Taylor and Brady Curry picked up four pointers with Walmsley converting two, giving Scone the edge at oranges, even after a Denman try with five to go.

The second half turned into more a one way affair however with Denman failing to add to their score and Scone crossing for three more.

Caleb Taylor and Lachlan Walmsley added to their tallies, as did Ian Carter, right at the bell.

Walmsley converted two of the three for the final score line of 34:10.

Coach Darryl Rando was pleased with the efforts of the team – “that was a real improvement today.

We had more direction, particularly in attack which is was an area that needed to be sharpened up.”

First Grade:

First Grade was one way traffic from start to finish, however the efforts of the Denman team under difficult circumstances were acknowledged and appreciated by all supporters at the field.

With only 13 players signing on, it was always going to be tough day – and while the end result was a big score line they did not stop trying throughout, to their credit.

Try scorers for the day were James Eveleigh (3), Josh Adams (2) Tim Watson (2), Joe Adams (2), Haydon Topliss (2), James Carrascalao, Jarrod Wicks, Justin Apthorpe and Jake Collison.

Haydon Topliss added to his tries, 11 conversion for a 30 point personal haul, and John Johnson converted one at the end.

Coach Daniel Ritter also acknowledged the efforts of Denman – “they never gave up to their credit and were called on to do a lot of defence from start to finish. Our boys played well under the circumstances and I couldn’t have asked for much more.”

This Weekend:

This weekend sees the team splitting with Reserves and Ladies League Tag travelling to Murrurundi on Saturday.

These should be very good games with all teams performing well to date – definitely worth the trip for a 2pm start.

On Sunday, First Grade and Under 18’s are away at Greta Branxton.

Again, these matches should be close matches and supporters are encouraged to travel south for the Under 18 game kicking off at 11:15am and First Grade at 2pm.