Oilplus Cup: Wellington Redbacks win against Molong Magpies

In what could be described as a tale of two halves in defensive efforts, Wellington held on to eventually win the nail-biting game 20-17.

The Redbacks came out firing and lead in the first half of the game at Bicentennial Park.

Wellington's Zachary McManus was the first to put points on the score-board with a penalty goal.

McManus' kicking was superb, converting two tries for both Thomas Swainston and Mitchell Budge.

At half-time Wellington were in front 14-3 but Molong came back and at one stage looked like they could even take the lead.

Redbacks coach Greg Brien said the first half of the game was Wellington's best all season.

"They just did everything right, they trusted their inside man to make those tackles. It was their best efforts, but probably one of the best team efforts I've seen from Wellington in a long while," he said.

Wellington and Molong previously met on two occasions this season, with the Redbacks claiming victory on both, but going into the semi-finals Brien knew they had to be mentally strong.

He said Molong just seemed to have the upper hand in the second half of Saturday's game.

"We had all of our plans in place, we wanted to kick it down to the bottom corner and try to isolate them but we didn't execute our plans properly in the second half and we let Molong get a bit of field position which really hurt us in the end and they clawed their way back," Brien said.

"We got the rub of the green in the first half.... we should have been looking for field position and playing the ball down here but it just didn't happen."

Just like their round nine clash against the Geurie Goats which resulted in 22-all, Brien described Saturday's clash with Molong as "another good, hard game of bush footy."

Post-match, Brien was all praise for the Magpies players saying they were a great bunch of guys.

The other semi-final match held over the weekend was between the Geurie Goats and Coolah Roos.

Geurie won 35-17, which means they will go up against Molong next weekend in a do or die grand final decider.

Magpies coach Dean Butler said they've got a structure and a pattern that they went away from for most of the game against the Redbacks.

"We've just got to get back on that... we only played 20 minutes of good footy," he said.

"If we can do it for 80 minutes we'll be well and truly into it."

The Molong coach said he will tell his side to hold their heads high.

"We've got a home semi next week and we'll re-group at training and we'll be right back into it," Butler said.

"We've got some things we need to work on.... but we'll go away and analyse the game and work from there."