The Harden Red Devils are celebrating their 50th year in style, ploughing through the competition with a single loss as they enter the second half of the season.
The Devils were red-hot from round 1, beating West Wyalong Weevils 79 – nil at home, then travelling to Young for round 2 against the Yabbies, where they came off the paddock with a 35 – 14 win.
Round 3 was a similar story when the Devils gave their home crowd a show, beating Temora 31 – 5.
Round 4 was a tough one for the Devils as they went up against a terrifyingly strong Boorowa outfit, but the Goldies weren’t good enough for Harden, winning 35 – 24.
Round 5 against Condobolin at Condobolin was where the Devils faced their only loss, going down 29 – 24. It didn’t take them long to bounce back as they would win the very next week against the Coota Tri-Colours 33 – 10.
Round 7 saw the Devils beat Grenfell at home 26 – nil, bringing us to where we are now.
Jack Alcorn of the Harden Red Devils said, “The season so far has been good. When we’ve got our full strength team there, it’s a very good side, and that’s what we’re hoping to have in the 50th year. It’s really good to see that it’s actually happening. I’m happy with how we’re performing the 1st half of the season and hopefully we can keep it up in the second.
“We need to work on consistency. If we can focus on minimising our errors and consistently doing what’s going to win us games, we’ve got the time there to do it. It’s a matter of making sure that we use that time to the best of our abilities.
“It is interesting this season. There’s been a lot of very close games, and there’s no team that you can take lightly in the whole competition. We’re certainly not going to be taking any teams lightly, I know, especially with a few away games throughout the second half of the season; we really need to take our full strength side and make sure that we are at the top of our game every game.
“We have got ladies’ day coming up in two weeks, which is going to be a big one.
We’ve already had our ball, which was a huge success. Everyone that I have spoken to, and even myself, we have all enjoyed it, and there’s real credit to the whole committee that was on that.
“After ladies’ day, our next point of call is doing our best to go as far as we can.
“The She-Devils have had some very strong performances, especially early in the season. They’ve got a few tougher opponents as well, Temora and Grenfell, who they’ve sadly gone down to in the 1st half, but they’ll keep working, and I’m sure that there’s an even better 2nd half of the season to come from the women.
“We are away against West Wyalong this weekend, both the women’s and the men’s teams are playing. We have got a bit of a road trip ahead of us, but then back home next weekend for our ladies’ day against Young.”
Fixture for the rest of the season:
Round 8 (June 13) – West Wyalong at West Wyalong
Round 9 (June 20) – Young Yabbies at Harden (Ladies day)
Round 10 (June 27) – Temora Tuskers at Temora.
Round 11 (July 11) – Boorowa at Boorowa.
Round 12 (July 18) – Condobolin at Harden. (She-Devils bye)
Round 13 (July 25) – Cootamundra at Coota. (She-Devils bye)
Round 14 (August 1) – Grenfell at Grenfell.
The Devils are celebrating their 50th year with wins on the board.
The She-Devils have had more of an up-and-down season, getting some wins and some losses throughout.
They had a good start, beating West Wyalong 33 – nil, then going on to beat the Yabbies 54 – 5.
It would be round 3 when the momentum began to shift, with the She-Devils going down to Temora 22 – 7. The girls quickly shot back up by beating Boorowa 57 – 7, but in their most recent match-up, they couldn’t get the same results, losing to Grenfell 19 – 14.
Jack Murray
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