A Filisone Pauta inspired Dubbo Kangaroos side has come from behind to defeat the Cowra Eagles 26-20 in round four of the Blowes Cup at No.1 Oval on Saturday.
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Cowra started the game strongly as winger Hayden Cummins crossed in the corner to open the scoring 5-0.
Cowra would cross again through Vilikesa Qio Koilagi with Ben Watt slotting the conversion to stretch the lead to 12-0.
Dubbo clawed their way back into the game on the back of some ill-discipline from Cowra as Jake Styles kicked a penalty goal to open the home sides account 12-3.
Cowra winger Navitali Bota showed some fancy footwork to score the visitors third try of the day with the score 17-3, the Roos looked in for a long afternoon.
A strong Pauta run set up the Roos opening try coming through Johnny Mafiti bringing the score back to 17-8 as it would remain until half-time.
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Cowra and Watt extended their lead shortly into the second half kicking a penalty goal to go up 20-8.
Styles matched it with a penalty kick of his own before Mafiti made a break out wide and found young winger Calub Cook in open space who scored under the posts bringing the home side back into the game at 20-18.
Pauta looked to threaten for much of the game and made a break with five minutes left before grubbering a ball through for Cook who scored his second of the game to give the Roos their first lead of the day at 23-20.
Styles left the field with a shoulder injury but returning captain Hamish Gordon calmly slotted a penalty in front to stretch the score to 26-20.
Cowra looked to hit back with constant pressure on the Roos line and thought they had scored only for the final pass to be called forward.
The Roos maintained possession before Gordon booted the ball over the sideline to signal the end of the match.
On his return from an ankle injury, Gordon was elated with his side's performance especially in the second half.
"Happy with the performance there, I think the boys really got on the front foot and ran through the middle then finishing it off out wide which is a massive positive to see that we are not going wide first then trying to get through the middle upfront," he said.
"We felt good, we were running into the sun and into the breeze so we knew it was going to be a slog we just stuck with it and kept driving and then once we got a bit of wind behind us in the second half we got our tails up we were good to go."
Cowra coach Cole Kilby was understandably less than impressed with the performance of his side after leading at half time.
"I just thought we were flat, we didn't play as a team we probably had plenty of opportunities where we could've sealed the game and poor decisions or discipline let us down, we knew Dubbo would be at us all game and we were waiting for some else in the team to put their hand up and take it," he said.
"There was a lot of one out, we weren't respecting the ball enough and we were trying to score points without doing the hard work in the middle first, anyway it was a bit flat coming up here and you can't be flat in any game."
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