Like a decent drop of rain for Dungog and surrounding areas, a win for the Warriors has been non-existant for the last two months but the drought was broken for the Warriors on Sunday at Bennett Park when they showed a welcome return to form with a 36-12 win over Paterson River.
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The Warriors supporters haven’t had much too cheer about recently but were in full voice on Sunday as Dungog ran away with the game in the second half.
The win keeps Dungogs semi final chances alive but they still need to knock over a couple of the sides above them on the ladder to achieve this goal.
The Warriors still have a few bad habits they need to break but the way they ran over their opposition in the second half gives plenty of hope for the remaining four games leading into the semis.
The first half was not much of an advertisement for rugby league with both sides making simple schoolboy errors.
Dungog were enjoying the better of play territorially and went over for its first try when winger Aaron Cottom crossed in the corner for an unconverted try mid way through the half.
The Warriors forwards who should have been relishing the challenge against the River appeared to be just going through the motions and it wasn’t until the introduction of Luke Hughes, making a welcome early return from injury and Dan Sherwin that the Warriors started to gain the upper hand.
Hughes straight hard running put Dungog on the front foot and Sherwin’s ability to get the ball wide from the five/eight position opened up opportunities for the Warriors and it was a cut out ball from Sherwin to Paul Chandler who in turn passed the ball inside to centre Trent McCarthy which resulted in Dungogs second try just before the break.
Lee Nevin was unsuccessful with the conversion and the Warriors found themselves in a position they hadn’t experienced for a few weeks’ going to half time with a handy 8-0 lead.
Dungog appeared to have extended its lead early in the second half only for Lee Nevin to have ruled to have knocked on when attempting to score.
Typical of Dungog-Paterson games over the years , there is always plenty of feeling and this spilled over not long after with two separate incidents resulting in Luke Hughes and Zac Thackeray from the Warriors along with the Paterson lock and fiveight having to cool their heels in the sin bin for the next 10 minutes.
With the game reduced to 11 a side it was the Warriors who took control of the game.
Firstly Aaron Cottom gave a great impersonation of Corey Parker from the last State Of Origin game when he somehow managed to offload for fullback Chris Nevin to go over for a converted try and this was followed up soon after when Luke Rits regathered a last tackle kick from Lee Nevin to race 20 metres and score under the posts.
Nevin duly converted to have the Warriors in control at 20-0. A mistake from the restart had Paterson on the attack and they found themselves on the scoreboard when they crossed for a converted try.
With both sides back to their full complement of players the Warriors continued its dominance over the last 20 minutes to race in another three tries and two conversions against the Rivers lone converted try.
The first of Dungogs last three tries was orchestrated by Luke Rits whe after making the initial break offloaded to Lee Nevin who planted the ball under the black dot.
Next up Luke Hughes went over for his first try in the Warriors colours who then turned on a post try celebration worthy of a place at the World Cup which has just wrapped up in Brazil.
The Warriors saved its best try for last which saw the ball pass through several sets of hands before Aaron Cottom capped of a great game by crossing in the corner on the stroke of fulltime to have the Warriors running out winners 36-6.
There were a host of good players for the Warriors with Jason Clements, Luke Rits and Zac Thackeray standing out in the forwards while in the backs Aaron Cottom, Lee and Chris Nevin along with Jackson Bell all had fine games. From the bench Luke Hughes and Dan Sherwin both put in strong cases to be in the run on side in the coming weeks.
RSL best forward Jason Clements, RSL best back Lee Nevin, players’ player Aaron Cottom and Ray’s reserve Dan Sherwin.
This Sunday the Warriors take on Thornton/Beresfield at Bennett Park at 2.30pm.
In their two clashes this year Dungog have finished on the wrong end of the scoreboard but have had excuses both times and if they cut out simple mistakes, complete their sets and play like they did in the second half against Paterson they can definitely cause an upset and come away with the two points.
