A HUGELY impressive defensive performance highlighted the Western Rams under-16s victory against the Greater Southern Redbacks in round two of the AAMI Country Championships on Saturday.
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Western kept the Redbacks scoreless at Cowra's Sid Kallas Oval while crossing for five tries, two in the opening half and three in the following.
St John's Dubbo duo Paddy Haycock and Matt Burton were standouts with Haycock scoring a try while Burton, the instrumental five-eighth, had his radar working converting each attempt for the Rams to win 30-0.
Winning coach Jamie Szczerbanik praised his side's defence in a win he described as not the prettiest.
"It's very pleasing especially with the way the competition is with just the top two going through to the finals," Szczerbanik said.
"Potentially going into this week three teams could have ended up on four points at the end of the Championships so for and against would come into it, it's a very pleasing result.
"Our performance wasn't that free flowing but to the boys credit they had to grind out a win today and they did.
"They were tough, the opposition, and we did what we had to do to get the chocolates." After dominating the opening exchanges, Western opened the scoring in the 15th minute through Orange CYMS halfback Josh Board, and his halves partner Burton added the extras. Moments later Cowra's Jacob Pollard pounced on a low kick placed in the Redbacks' in-goal and the lead was extended to 12-0. The scores remained the same when the siren sounded for the end of the opening 30 minute half, and Szczerbanik said the Rams could have had a larger advantage.
"We probably should of been in front by a little bit more, a couple of bad decisions from our boys and a couple of unlucky calls went against us so we just spoke about regrouping and going out and playing our game not there game," he said.
The half-time talk worked and hooker Haycock crossed courtesy of a nice off-load from Red Bend Forbes prop Matthew Nicholson.
Nicholson was next to notch a four-pointer crashing over on the left edge and Burton kept his kicking percentage at 100 percent knocking over the fourth try for a 24-0 lead at the 40 minute mark.
With three minutes remaining Nathan Swain capitalised on some tired Redbacks defence busting the and running 40 metres to score a deserved try.
Burton added the two points to confirm Western's second win in as many weeks.
Due to the Bidgee Bulls and the Greater Southern Stingrays 30-all draw, the Rams are now qualified for the Country Championships final and are top of the Southern Division ladder.
"The boys deserve it they've put in the hard yards over the summer it wasn't the prettiest performance but they improve every week, it'd be sad for them not to make the finals so it's a great bonus," Szczerbanik said.
The Rams play the Greater Southern Stingrays in Bateman's Bay on April 23 in the final pool match.
WESTERN RAMS 30 (Josh Board, Jacob Pollard, Paddy Haycock, Matthew Nicholson, Nathan Swain tries; Matt Burton five conv.) defeated GREATER SOUTHERN STINGRAYS 0.