Crookwell’s Green Devils can produce some surprise performances in George Tooke Shield but sadly they don’t travel well.
Full back Matty Cooke was out with an ankle injury for Binalong which could well have handed the visitors a chance to pounce, as they did two weeks ago with a 10-4 win over the Harden Hawks. The spectators and players observed a minute’s silence before the game got under way for Shane Dowling.
Binalong received the ball from the kick-off and ran into a very cold breeze on a very wet and slippery ground. Both sides had problems staying on their feet all day. Chris Rawlinson again elected to run the ball himself on Saturday and was absolutely mesmeric all afternoon.
After only 5 minutes Rawlinson was only 10 metres out from the Crookwell line with two players outside him. He looked to pass, took a step and went through untouched for the first of his 3 tries in the match.
The conversion was missed, but not 5 minutes later, prop Reuben Olah found himself only 3 metres out and scored a classic forward’s barge over try under the sticks. Rawlinson converted to bring up the 10-0 score line.
What transpired in the next 18 minutes was one of the finest defensive efforts of the season. Crookwell recovered from their early setback and launched raid after raid, deep in the Brahmans territory. Time and again, the Green Devils got to within 2 metres of Binalong’s line but could not penetrate. They did force a rare goal line drop out from the premiers.
Binalong have now conceded just 52 points in 2014 and their defence held out again. However, the hosts asserted their superior strike power and in the 25th minute, Guy Sherrett crossed for the first of his two tries for the day.
As Binalong lifted in intensity Craig Irwin, who was replacing Cooke at fullback, scored for the first of his 2 tries followed close to half time by Olah’s second try. Daniel Poidevin took the conversion to bring up the oranges score of 24-0. Olah was ably assisted by Tom Johnson in the number 10 jumper and both were aggressive in attack and defence.
When the players returned to recommence hostilities, an avalanche of tries to Binalong were scored to humiliate their visitors. The sun did manage to make brief appearances, but the soggy ground took a lot away from the spectacle.
After a rather unsavoury incident with only 16 minutes of the game remaining and the Brahmans leading 52-0, the Crookwell 5/8 was sent to the sin bin. The Brahmans then quickly took the score up to 66-0 with their hosts down to 12 players.
At full back, Craig Irwin was a stand out scoring 2 tries and kicking 5 goals for the match. But it was that stoic defence of the premiers which was the feature of the game. In spite of the 66-0 score line, the pretty good crowd was treated to some spectacular ball play by Naughton, Sparnon and Sherrett. Penalties went 7-5 to Binalong.
The Magpies had the bye this week and Harden triumphed by 18-12 over Bungendore to leave the top of the table unchanged for this week. This leads us to next week when Yass travel to Boorowa to take on the winless Rovers.
But, the match of the day will be at McLean Oval Harden, when the Brahmans will have the chance to unseat the Hawks from second spot. This should be an absolutely gripping match, with a firm surface at Harden we hope to see some spectacular play.
