Western Rams under 16s and 18s both lost to Northern Tigers

The Rams went into Saturday's game against Northern Tigers at Farrer's John Simpson Oval still in with a chance of making the finals but were knocked out after a 30-10 defeat.

Defending for the majority of the opening half, Hancock was happy with the resilience his side showed in tough conditions against a quality side.

"We only had the ball twice in the first 16 or 17 minutes," he said.

"Northern played really well, they took care of the ball really well in the first half so we had to defend a lot.

"I thought we did a pretty good job to keep them at 10 points early on, I think it could've easily blown out more.

"We defended well and although it was 10-0 it could have been worse. We got a little bit of ball at the end and scored two tries.

"They scored on half time which hurt us a bit and then it was 14-10 at half time."

The Tigers lead 10-0 early before Rex Bassingthwaite and Jayden Innes crossed the line for Western to level the scores.

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A late try to the hosts gave the Tigers a four-point lead which they extended in the second half as Reece Josephson scored a hat-trick with Northern running away with the win.

Coming into half-time, Hancock was hopeful about his side's chances but knows they were very fatigued.

"We sort of spoke at halftime about looking after the footy and not giving penalties away because of the output we had to in the first 20 minutes because of our defence," he said.

"It wasn't the case, we gave them easy outs with penalties due to ill-discipline and we had the ball we didn't look after it enough in the second half."

The score may have blown out in the end, however, the Western mentor knows the group has come a long way since the beginning of the competition.

"They never stopped trying the whole game, their effort was outstanding," he said.

"When the game started getting away from us, they let their emotions get the better of them and when that happens we lost all focus towards our little things.

"We spoke about it after the game because a lot of these boys are going to play in some big games, they are going to have to recognise when the game gets a bit emotional."

A mixture of players from all over the Western region, Hancock believes some of the bonds created will last a long time.

"I thought the last two weeks the boys have become really close and have created some good friendships," he said.

"You can see they've learned a lot because you can see there are some individuals who have come a long way and have improved immensely."

The under 18s Rams were also defeated by the Tigers with the latter winning 42-6 to knock Western out of the competition.

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