In a remarkable display in wet conditions, the New England Nomads beat the Inverell Saints by 96 points and in so doing have won their first home grand final since 2006. Even more remarkably, the Nomads kept the Saints scoreless from the 10 minute mark of the first quarter in weather that should have suited the Saints. It was a very fitting way for Rowdy Ballagh to celebrate his 100th game.

The game started out badly with the Nomads looking timid and slightly reluctant to win the hard ball. As a consequence in the first ten minutes, play was mainly in Saints forward line, and they scored the first goal and soon after a second. Weston Whitby, however, threw himself into the fray and won some hard ball and the team seemed to grow in confidence around him. Soon Jon Freund, Hoani “Rotate Boys” Morrell, and Riley Connor began dominating in the middle and the Nomads went to the first change just ahead.

From that point on the Nomads dominated, especially in the midfield where Tim Snelling (who Inverell would not have seen) won every ruck and the smalls were hard and fast. Up forward Jed Ellis-Cluff had a field day kicking while Modra kicked a number of crumbing goals as the ball came over the back in the slippery conditions. Boaty led well all day, though wasn’t always honoured for his trouble. Stubbsy, in his first game back after injury, held onto a couple of real screamers and troubled their backmen all day.

Despite the scoreline the Nomads backline did have a lot of work to do. They were very strong in the early moments when the momentum was with Inverell – and Rowdy, Zac Wells and Benji Julien all played good hard football in the wet. Indeed it would be a mistake to think that because there were no goals after the first quarter that it was a cakewalk. The Saints did not give up. But it was the Nomads’ stamina and intelligent play that won through. One telling moment occurred in the third quarter when a Saints player ran onto a loose ball in their forward 20 and Tom Granleese and Benji Julien corralled the player rather than rushing at him and then when the Saint handballed off, Tim Snelling wrapped up his opponent to gain a free kick. It typified the way the game went. What should have been a goal for the Saints turned into a free for the Nomads

It was nonetheless a hard hard slog and much work needs to be done before the Grand Final to ensure that the team maintains its form.

Go the Green!

Round SF2 2013

This entry was posted on Monday, August 19th, 2013 at 9:00 am and is filed under Match report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.