I have bitten my lip with some of the comments made about Hills and their players over the last few months..
My man of the match was Big Willy Skelton. He was just unbelievable with his runs, off loads and general workrate.
Well done to the Hills lads. I must confess to giving them faint praise in the past and especially a week ago after they played at Camden, but today they were terrific. [Where is that icon for kneeling on one knee and bowing arms extending?]
Big Willie was your man of the match observer?? Was he ever !! It's the best game I have seen him play and he wasn't the Lone Ranger. Prop and stand-in skipper, David Lolohea who played on both sides of the scrum during the day, was another, and he had a high work rate too. When it was 3-6, his try just before oranges was the signal for Hills to put the hammer down and when they re-started, Hills just blitzed St. Augustines.
But 2. Roy Fa'ate'ete and 8, Jason Havea were also a revelation to me and I had to keep looking at my programme to see the name of other players who looked like stars but hadn't shown it to me before.
The silver medal for man of the match must go to 10. Greg McCallum. He was running close to Willie's hip all day. Skelton has soft hands for a big man and his efforts with a couple of guys hanging off him led to moves up the field and often, tries, but sometimes Willie was too busy swatting off tacklers to unload and Greg was running past him like Terry Lamb, the arch backer-upper.
Even apart from the symbiosis with Skelton, McCallum, had an outstanding match. He was the catalyst for a lot of tries but in the tight first half he was instrumental in getting the ball in the right corners of the field. Ironically Saints scored one of only two tries from one of his chip kicks as ships passed in the night.
Hills were missing players but so were Saints, though hooker Kaufmann reported fit for duty after his Camden injury. 4. Dombkins, injured in the Oz A game on Saturday, also signed on, but was re-injured early in the final. Though he was able to finish the match (IIRR) he wasn't the same force for Saints as he has been.
A killer blow was the concussion of Saints 10. Brisby after about 15 minutes. Hills 6. Newcombe had a top game as observer said, but he was lucky to get just a yellow card for the coathanger to Brisby. Replacement 10. Natoli played well but the 9. Paul, 10. Brisby, 12. Purcell nexus was lost, and 13. Hingano was absent too on Oz Schools duties as we knew he would be.
It was a disappointment to me that he was injured. As a neutral rugby tragic I wanted to compare the different syles of Quade-like Brisby and Carter-like McCallum
It was all probably irrelevant though as the runs of the big Hills forwards knocked the stuffing out of Saints tacklers and not just one per tackle. The surprise for me was not that they could do this, but that they could do it for most of the match.
Well done Hills; worthy champions. 5 tries to 2 says it all and some were team tries that took the breath away.