From the Armidale Express, 02/07/2007
The New England Nomads had an easy win over the Gunnedah Bulldogs in miserable conditions at Bellevue Oval on Saturday.

The score line finished 12-14-86 to 2-7-19.

The Nomads began well with two goals to returning-scoring-machine Mark Handley before the Bulldogs replied before the break.

Handley finished the match with six goals to his name.

At quarter-time the match still could have gone either way, but the Bulldogs barely turned up for the remainder of the match, allowing the Nomads to score freely and effectively gifting them the four points.

“The first quarter was fairly close, but we didn’t get as much ball forward as we could have,” coach Adrian Walsh said.

“It was much better than last week.

“It was difficult in the cold and wet conditions but a lot of the boys played well.

“Having Mark Handley back in the side was obviously good and he gave the boys something to look for.

“Clint Ballagh played really well, we’ve had him in the forward line and on the wing and he actually played in the backline this time and did really well.

“Anthony Alderuccio was great in the centre, he got a lot of kicks and fed Handles well.

“Anthony Reid played well in the ruck as well, he’s been playing well for us all year.

“We were much more disciplined than last week, last week we had a few ill-disciplined moments with backchat and things like that.

“You can’t be giving away 50 metre penalties for stuff like that and expect to win.”

Things will be tougher for the Nomads this week when they travel to Inverell to take on competition leaders the Saints.

The two sides first met this season back in May, when the Saints came away victors by 55 points.

“I think we’re actually going to have 19 out, it’s not just the university holidays and injuries but a number of our town players are taking school holidays as well,” he said.

“With the amount of players we’re going to have out next week I don’t know that I’ll be expecting too much.

“We’ll play them down here towards the end of the season so we’ll see what happens then but we’ll always struggle at this time of year.”

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