After a slow start Clarence Town Cobras produced probably their best 40 minutes of football in the second half to run out convincing winners over Cardiff last Saturday at Clarence Town Oval.
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The visitors skipped to an early 10-0 lead but a treble of tries from winger/centre Joe Gorton helped the homeside to a runaway 50-16 victory.
Trailing 10-0, the Cobras worked their way back into the game and after some nice lead up work from the forwards, Foot combined with winger Shane Lewis to score and cut the margin to 4-10.
Soon after fullback Kurt Blowes sliced through the Cardiff defence to race away and score under the posts and level the game at 10-10.
The Cobras were gaining momentum and when Sam Dunn ran a beautiful line on to a Trappel pass to burst through the defence to score, the real Cobras had taken the lead for the first time in the game and carry a 16-10 lead into the half-time break.
After a fantastic effort defending their line for several sets early in the second half Clarence Town broke Cardiff’s heart by responding with a brilliant try.
Two incredible offloads from Trappel and George Dunn, and great awareness from Gorton saw him cross for the first of his tries. His second came soon after when he and Foot combined off the back of a scrum to stretch the lead out to 26-10.
Gorton then intercepted a pass off a Cardiff movement to race untouched to score his third try for the afternoon. Badiors’ conversion made the score 32-10.
After a break by Rumbel, Cardiff made a mess of cleaning up a nicely placed kick in goal for George Dunn to score. Dunn was again in the thick of things when he charged down a Cardiff clearing kick on halfway and Blake Fisher neatly picked up the rolling ball and race away to score. The conversion had Claro in full control at 44-10.
An error and some feeble defence near the line enabled Cardiff to post their first points of the second half. But not long after Claro clocked 50 with a nice piece of work from Badior out of dummy half to pick up winger Wil Palermo on the blindside to cross untouched in the corner.
The Cobras travel to Cardiff in a rematch on Saturday at 2pm at Cardiff Oval.
Congratulations to James Foot on his 100th game for the club. Foot has missed just four games in his five-and-a-half seasons with the club and scored 51 tries.
Clarence Town 50: Tries: Joe Gorton 3, Kurt Blowes, George Dunn, Shane Lewis, Sam Dunn, Blake Fisher, Wil Palermo. Goals: Phil Badior 7/9. Best Forward: Tom Rumbel; Best Back: Kurt Blowes; Supporters’ Award: Joe Gorton; Best Benchy: Blake Fisher; Players’ Player: Joe Gorton. Best and fairest points: 3 Kurt Blowes, 2 Tom Rumbel, 1 Joe Gorton