The Gulgong Terriers held off a concerted challenge from the Dunedoo Swans to take an entertaining and enthralling Bendigo Bank Castlereagh League southern derby in front of a large attendance at Gulgong’s Billy Dunn Oval last Saturday.
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In the end the Terriers were able to claim the two competition points by winning the contest 22 to 16, but the Swans certainly signalled that they are well and truly up there with the best of them, putting up a stout display before finally going down to the reigning premiers.
Gulgong captain coach Brad James said that as expected Dunedoo came to play, however it was a bit of an unpolished performance by his side.
“It’s always a good game between us and Dunedoo because of the rivalry,” he said.
“It was pretty close all game, I missed four goals so if I had’ve kicked them it wouldn’t have been as close, not taking anything away from them though because they played well.
“[Dunedoo] scored the first try, then we did and it went try for try a while until we scored three before halftime.
“But our ball control and discipline let us down a bit, we only completed at about 40 per cent which is nowhere near good enough when we should be around 80 per cent.”
The win maintained Gulgong’s share of second position on the competition ladder alongside the Gilgandra Panthers.
In the League Tag it was Dunedoo who triumphed to the tune of 36-0.
This weekend the Terriers are away to Coolah.
James said that he expects them to be switched on to take on the Terriers as well.
“They’ll be tough, a bit similar to Dunedoo in that a lot of the blokes who play for Coolah have played for Gulgong before, so they always turn up,” he said.
“You can’t take them too lightly and we’ll need to be a lot better than we were last weekend.”
The other matches; Coonabarabran V Gilgandra, Dunedoo V Trangie, Coonamble V Baradine, and Warren have the bye.
Gulgong 22 (Brad James 2, Thomas Reddish, Steve Hardy, James Carter tries, James goal) defeated Dunedoo 16 (Kerrin O’Malley, Jacob Besgrove, Kyle Barrows tries, Daniel Lane 2 goals).
