John Manchester swings the ball out wide from the scrum.
The Harden Red Devils will face the Boorowa Goldies in the 2025 Grand Final in the South West Fuels Cup. The Devils were up against a very strong and determined Coota outfit at Roberts Park on Saturday, where lovers of various styles of Rugby were treated to running Rugby, rough stuff up the middle, aerial skills in the line out and your traditional scrummaging, which saw both sides do their best to take ascendancy from the other in a contest which also saw plenty of kicking from both Harden’s Fullback Joe Stewart and Coota’s reliable 12, Hamish Pennington.
The match commenced with 3 points to Harden as they camped on Coota’s line, and it stayed that way until Coota were able to strike back with a score of their own. Yellow cards were the flavour of the day, and it ended in a red card with both sides guilty of infringements, but both sides could not give away penalties and play smart Rugby, which needed to come to the fore for the win.
Harden looked all but gone at one stage after Coota picked and went, chipping away at territory for considerable metres, but the youthful Devils were able to reset themselves and make sure that their fitness and game plan were utilised to their best. Harden President Charlie Brown is considered one of the best, if not the best, players in Central West.
At Open-side Flanker, there is no peer to him in this comp, often representing Central West year on year before suffering a season-ending knee injury, which has kept him out of 2025 from a playing point of view. The Times contacted Brown to get his slant on the match, and he was proud of his troops and Coach Jack Alcorn, who led from the front.
“I think we were well aware that they were probably going to be a fair bit stronger than the last two times we played them. I think everyone on the team knew we were going to have to be at our best to get over them. “There were points in the game where they were well and truly on top of us. “I think we started well and were completely all over them. We camped ourselves in their end for a fair bit of that first quarter of the game, but probably didn’t quite get the reward on the scoreboard that the game looked like we should have had. We couldn’t quite convert that last little piece, and then the second half of that first half, they fought back, credit to them, they fought back very hard and went into the half with a lead.
“The start of the second half was a bit the same. They were probably just out playing us there for that middle 40 minutes. We were good in patches there. They just got on top and got a roll on.“They got some field position. Those big boys are hard to stop when you give them some position. “Massive credit to our boys. It probably looked like the game was nearly gone there at one point. With 20 minutes to go, I don’t know what the call was. I think they went back down to 14, and the boys got a little roll on and got some field position, which we had bugger all field position for that start of that second half, and they got a roll on.
“We probably started well and then slipped off. We didn’t get into our structure and get into our game until the last 25 minutes. It was very stop-start, and while we had good patches everywhere. We didn’t string a good passage together for a long enough period to get into our rhythm and make it work and then that last 25 minutes everyone just clicked and it just turned into that structure and that style of play that the boys have worked so hard to get this year and then no one would have stopped them there in that last 25 minutes. That was about the best 20 minutes of football we played. We were just everywhere.
“They had no answers, and we were just completely and utterly on top, and we just took 60 minutes to get there or 55 at least, to just get into that rhythm, but credit to the boys, they fought back, and no one panicked. No one thought, oh, the game has gone, they fought back into it and that last 25 minutes they looked very impressive from the sideline which was pleasing to see that they’ve got that resilience and that fortitude to go well, hang on we’ve just got to fix it and get back into our structure and the points will come and they did and we ended up with chocolates. I think they would be pretty happy with themselves.
“We’ve probably got to play like that 25 minutes for 80 minutes this week if we want to come home with the cup, but time will tell. The boys will be doing everything in their power to make sure that happens.”
Little will change for the Devils for this week’s preparation, with training centring around what has worked for the men in red this year. You can bet they will be relying on their fitness and their skill-set, but will need a few surprises up their sleeves for the Goldies.
“If you look at our side, we’re fairly young, very young, very inexperienced. I don’t know how many people we would have left on that side from the 2020 grand final. We haven’t even been back to a big dance since.
“We have probably got to work on just keeping things how they are and not overwhelming any of those young blokes. I don’t think they would get overwhelmed. I think they’re mentally strong enough and tough enough that I don’t think much would throw them off their game, but it’s about just making sure we stick to what we do and not worrying too much about everything else. While it’s all nice and the celebrations are fantastic, it’s a good week to enjoy, but hopefully the boys can just stick to doing their normal training and not worrying about it too much and then just get to enjoy the day win, lose or draw.”
Brown spoke of Alcorn’s influence on the side in his third season at the helm. “He’s been there a couple of years and now coaching, and has gone to bigger and better things, from strength to strength with his own game as well. “He looks like he can play his own game, and his brother Nick has come on board as well. They seem to be clicking pretty well together as a duo. “I think this might be Jack’s third year of coaching. No one has any questions about his coaching ability; he’s pretty bloody good at what he does, and he’s thorough.
“I think this year, he has stepped up his own game. He’d be one of our most damaging ball runners, and there are some of the shots he’s putting on, week in and week out, it’s pretty hard. He’s the one giving the points out and stuff like that, but every single game, he is one of the best players on the field for us, and he’s a pretty modest bloke. He’s never going to say that himself, but there’s no two ways about it. He is crucial, not just as a coach, but as a player himself, to how we go on the weekend.
“He’s been very, very impressive. He probably hadn’t done much coaching until he took over three years ago and he’s gone from strength to strength with that, but this year, not just himself with the coaching but on the paddock have been vital to how we have gone this year, especially with the few younger blokes in, he’s just really stepped up shown them the way, which has been very pleasing and good on him.
Brown made no bones about it, and the need for Harden to lift for Saturday’s match. “We are 0-3 against them. We haven’t beaten them this year. “I think the boys have got the structures and that in place, and I don’t think we need to change anything too drastically. I think we’ve improved week in week out. But there’s no two ways about it. The boys have got to be on their A game, but we met them two weeks ago, it was fairly tight there, it could have gone either way there for a minute. We got back to within two points with fifteen to go, and it could have swung either way, so I think the blokes that we’ve got there and the structures that Alcorn has got in place, I think they can win it. There’s no two ways about it, but they’re going to have to be on song for 80 minutes. I’ve got no doubt that the blokes that are there, the 24 or 25 players we’ve got there on Saturday, they can do it, come home with a win.”
