Defending Blowes Clothing Cup premiers Forbes pulled Orange Emus’ pants down in a big way at Endeavour Oval on Saturday afternoon, the Platypi powered to a 37-21 victory on the back of a typically-scintillating performance from Mahe Fangupo.
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The mercurial halfback scored his side’s first two tries and played a crucial role in a number others, ignoring the knee complaint that’s bothered him since round five to lead his side to an important victory, both for their confidence and their precarious situation.
Forbes jump back to third with the victory, also thanks to Dubbo Kangaroos’ loss to Bathurst Bulldogs, and while they’ll still need to beat Cowra at Grinsted Oval next weekend to guarantee a semi-final berth, the win gives the Platypi a little breathing space.
A loss would’ve been an astronomical setback, but history now shows the Platypi took that out of the equation anyway.
Their win over the greens was more convincing than the 16-point gap suggests too, the Platypi were at one stage leading 34-7 before Emus cut into the gap with two late, converted tries.
“I think we had been building towards that performance a little bit, especially in the last few weeks. We’ve been working pretty hard on a few new, different things in terms of structure and it’s really starting to pay off,” Forbes skipper Jack Hammond said.
“It’s big result for us, I do still think Emus are the benchmark in this competition but (a lack of) discipline hurt them and we were good enough to take advantage.”
Discipline certainly did hurt the greens, they were on the wrong end of a whopping 21-10 penalty count, with three of the penalties they did receive coming in the first seven minutes and another three in the last six.
Nick Hughes-Clapp and Louis Carr both spent time in the sin-bin as well as a result, and in fact four of Forbes’ six tries came directly after penalties.
That combined with a less-than-impressive defensive effort and ordinary ball handling left Emus coach Paul Ringland a frustrated man after the game.
“It wasn’t good enough, our performance. Forbes out-played us and out-enthused us all over the paddock,” Ringland said.
“We just seemed a step behind the pace … it took being down 34-7 for us to really switch on.”
While Emus remain on top of the ladder and in the box seat to claim the minor premiership, the defeat has left the door ajar for the second-placed Bathurst Bulldogs.
If the Bathurst side scored a bonus-point win over Orange City in next weekend’s final round and Emus lose to Dubbo without a bonus point of their own, Bulldogs would leapfrog the greens.
