ORANGE City co-coach, Mick Gray admitted he took a lot of satisfaction from his side’s bonus point victory over defending premiers Dubbo Kangaroos at a wet No.1 Oval on Saturday.
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After dominating Central West rugby for two seasons, City’s reign was halted by Kangaroos in 2014 but Saturday’s win gave the Lions their second win from as many starts, and came at one of the Blowes Clothing Cup’s toughest away venues.
“Any time you come here and get the win it’s good. To get the bonus point is just that, a bonus,” Gray said.
“Roos are defending premiers and a very good club so to come here and walk away with the points is a big result for us.”
The Roos ran with the breeze for the first 40 minutes, but made little use of that advantage as the match was primarily played between the 22 metre marks in each half of the field.
Fullback Charles O’Connor gave the hosts a 3-0 lead with a long-range penalty in the 16th minute but his side would ultimately go into half-time trailing 5-3 after Chris Barrett scored off a charge down for City in the 32nd minute.
Despite being overpowered in the scrum and at the breakdown, City were able to bury the Roos in their own half and gradually got on top through the first 20 minutes of the second stanza, and they were eventually rewarded when replacement Josh Maley barged over.
Mesui Lemoto’s conversion extended the margin to nine and the gap became larger just two minutes later when Tom Fisher capped off a swift movement to cross and make the score 17-3.
Roos skipper Shaun McHugh backed up an Eli Kinscher break to get his side back into the match with 13 minutes remaining but when Lions fullback Joe Lasagavibau scored in the 73rd minute it sealed the win, and the four-try bonus point.
“I thought we played better today than we did against Narromine last week but it wasn’t enough,” McHugh said.
“There were some areas we really dominated today, I thought our scrum was brilliant and we were very good at the breakdown as well.
“In the end it was probably just some execution at key times that let us down.
“City have been a good team for a while now but we have a good squad and we will get better.
“I think we only had a handful of players on the field today that played in the grand final last year. We’ll work on things and hopefully build as the year goes on.”
ORANGE CITY LIONS 24 (Chris Barrett, Josh Maley, Tom Fisher, Joe Lasagavibau tries; Mesui Lemoto 2 convs) def DUBBO KANGAROOS 10 (Shaun McHugh try; Charles O’Connor conv, pen)