The Harden Red Devils Rugby community has sadly lost long-term player John Ryan, after he passed away on Saturday June 16. The club wishes to pass on its condolences to John’s family. John is pictured above, playing for Harden at Robert’s Park. Clint Stevens packs down against his opposite at Wallendbeen on Saturday.
John Ryan kicking a conversion for the Devils in 2017.
The Harden Devils got a wake up call on the weekend, going down in a nailbiter to Cootamundra tricolours at Grace Oval, Wallendbeen. A small but loyal crowd turned out on a cold and wet afternoon to watch the top and bottom teams fight it out. It would appear Coota has been on a successful recruitment drive through the season, turning up with a much-changed and quite larger team. They jumped out of the blocks early, crossing for two quick tries, giving them a 12-0 start. The Devils were going nowhere; then, suddenly Jessie Redmond followed his own kick through and, in tackling the opposing fullback the ball came free and was quickly scooped up by Jessie who ran forty metres to score under the posts.
The score at the break was 15-7. After an inspirational talk from Captain Clint Stevens at half-time the team went out ready to do battle and promptly let in a try. In the most controversial call of the day, Harden linesman, devils’ old boy and stalwart, Mick Minehan raised his flag to the conversion as the ball drifted a good 5 yards outside the posts. The Cootamundra crowd erupted with laughter and concrete orders. With the big Coota centres starting to tire, Harden threw the ball wide. Appreciating a bit of space Ben Lenehan stood up the centre, passed him on the outside, drew the fullback and offloaded inside to Jack O’Connor to go under 15 wide of the posts. Ben quickly converted. With the clock counting down, Coota were warned for time wasting while their five eight covered the ball with mud from the covered cricket pitch before kicking off. Despite this, the ball was taken and spun wide. Redmond hit a hole at speed, stepped the winger untouched, drew the fullback and put Josh Quinn over to give the Devils the lead.
Unfortunately the elation was to quickly turn to despair, as the clearance kick from the following kick-off didn’t make it out. With nothing to lose Coota threw everything at Harden and after 20 odd phases managed to go over next to the posts to seal a 27-26 win on the final whistle. A disappointed Jack O’Connor said, ‘We didn’t play with any intensity in the first half and really let Coota get on top. In the end we nearly and probably should have won the game but we didn’t deserve it.’ Injuries didn’t help the Devils’, Jimmy Honour leaving the field with ankle ligament damage and leading try scorer Harry Sachs looking like he had a season ending knee ligament damage.
Coach Adam Walsh summed the game up. ‘Cootamundra handled the conditions better than us and deserved the win. We couldn’t even get Flanery away from his fireplace, let alone across the Murrumboolah. The changes we had to make in the backline took a bit to gel but they put on some great tries when they did. In the end our defence, which has been really good, let us down today.’ The three points went to Ben Lenehan, two to James Wallace and one to Billy Bolger. The next game is at home to Condobolin on Saturday at Roberts Park at 3:15pm.
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