Warringah v Southern Districts
In wet and windy conditions, Souths managed to drown the Rats in a tightly-fought encounter at Pittwater Rugby Park. The Rebels fought hard throughout the match, dominating the Rats’ scrum and finding several gaps in their defence. Poor discipline and ball handling on both sides hindered the teams, with the match going down to the bell.
Disappointed Warringah captain Josh Holmes said after the match, “We were hoping to win by one point probably, right now at the moment close enough isn’t good enough for the Rats.”
The win is the second single-point victory in a row for Souths and the second consecutive one-point loss for the Rats. “The weather was horrible so we knew it was going to be a tight forwards’ game,” said winning captain Jono Hayes. “We saw that Norths only beat them (Warringah) by one (last week) so we knew it was going to be tough. It’s always hard coming from Southern Districts up to Rat Park.
“We got a huge spray on discipline last week, which obviously didn’t get through so we’re going to be focusing on our discipline and ball handling coming up to next week.”
Opening up the score with a penalty after 12 minutes, the Rebels looked strong playing with the wind. The Rats struggled to cope with the swirling wind, that kept pushing the ball back into their half. However they took advantage of the Rebels’ poor discipline, with Josh Holmes finding the try line to take a narrow 7-6 lead going into the second half.
Souths though were quick to hit back after the break, edging ahead through a third Rohan Saifoloi penalty. Their lead was short-lived, with poor discipline gifting the Rats’ six points from the boot of Dave Harvey. Approaching the end of the third quarter, the Rebels capitalised on some decent possession with scrumhalf Grayson Hart scoring in the corner to give his side a 14-13 that they fought hard to maintain for the final 20 minutes, despite losing a second player to the sin bin in the closing stages.
Southern Districts 14 (Grayson Hart try; Rohan Saifoloi 3 pens) d Warringah 13 (Josh Holmes try; Dave Harvey con, 2 pen) at Pittwater Rugby Park. Referee Edward Martin.
