Captain Jack Alcorn leads his side out last season.
The Harden Red Devils travelled to Cootamundra over the weekend to take on the Cootamundra Tri-Colours in a highly anticipated round-one clash. The Devils edged out the contest 26-21.
The game delivered on its promise of being both entertaining from the outside back and brutal from the bigs. Heading into the game, it seemed as though the two sides were inseparable in terms of quality, and the game played out as expected with the words grit and determination personified on the football pitch.
Coach of the Devils, Jack Alcorn, was chuffed with the result. “Nobody knew who was going to win, we’d like to think the two sides were pretty close to each other in terms of ability. They’ve got plenty of great players and are a quality team but so are we. The team went out to prove that on Saturday,” Alcorn said.
“At the end of the day, you’re never aware of what’s going to happen in the game until it unfolds. We were confident we had the game planned pretty well and trained even better, but you can have the best plan in the world and if the players don’t execute it, that means nothing. Luckily on Saturday we all went out there and did our jobs.
“It’s been a game that has always provided mixed results for both teams, they got us twice in the regular season last year before we got them in the finals, and we knew they’d have a bit of extra fire in them after last year and I thought we did a great job of handling it.”
Alcorn hopes his troops can kick on from the result and go on to bigger and better things.
“It’s instilled a lot of confidence in the boys, we knew going into the game that we had a strong side and were more than capable of competing against the big sides in the comp, it’ll help the younger players realise that they can hang with the men,” he continued.
“I thought everyone was excellent to a man. I couldn’t fault a single player’s performance. I thought everyone put in 110 per cent which we needed every bit of because Coota just kept coming and coming.”
After the Easter break the Devils will play their home opener against the Condobolin Rams on Saturday 26, the Rams are coming off a 31-10 defeat at the hands of the Boorowa Goldies. Alcorn expects a tough outing but says his side are up for it.
“Part of us obviously would’ve loved to play them this weekend coming off a big win, but I’d say we will be better off in the long term having this chance to sit back and heal from a pretty physical game against Coota and prepare for a tough game against Condo,” Jack said.
“They didn’t play the game they would’ve liked to last week but speaking to a few blokes that play for the Goldies, they were all impressed with Condo so it’s far from an easy win for us.
“We’ll be hoping to get a pretty good crowd for the home opener who we can hopefully show a good game to them and then celebrate after at the Country Club.”
Nick Alcorn was voted best on the field for the Devils, picking up the three points after the game, three penalty goals and a great debut in the number 10 for Jack Glover saw him collect two points whilst Olly Murphy picked up one.
-Tully Pott
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