Last week we welcomed the arrival of Col Voreen, an astute commentator who has been keeping his eye on the local George Tooke Shield competition.

Col has a sense of humour, a wide vocab and looks set to be a valued contributor at the Times. 

 

 

He attended the match between the Boorowa Rovers and the Crookwell Green Devils last weekend and had some sharp comments to make. He then attended the match between the Rovers and the Brahmans on Saturday.

   He said, “Appalling, If I had to use one word for the match between  Boorowa and Crookwell 2 weeks ago. That would be it….

The Rovers were without star forward Alex Stewart so they were already handicapped.

   Insert some poor refereeing and it’s a recipe for disaster…

The normally electric forward pack were not up to standard and the backs will need to have some training under the high ball if this team wants to make any sort of a splash in the finals.

The plays were plain and were easy to read, the hit ups were sluggish and quite frankly, the passes that were thrown were doing my head in.

I’m not lying when I say that this performance was the worst I’ve ever seen from these fellas and to be honest, I’m frightened it may happen again. The Refereeing was definitely poor but a lot of the penalties were on the Rovers, as with a lot of things the problem was effort.

The boys were throwing coat hangers and weren’t bothering getting down low. Unless the Crookwell boys doused themselves in oil, they shouldn’t have been slipping through that many tackles.

Multiple kicks were taken before the 5th tackle it didn’t help the Rovers as they struggled to maintain possession. If you think that sounds bad that was just their first half.

The second half however, had much of the same as the boys just seemed to have bricks for hands as multiple knock-ons occurred. There was plenty of trash talked from the sideline but to give the boys credit they did keep their cool.

If I had to give a most consistent on the team it would definitely be Murray Armour. Murray was great up the middle and set up his forward partner Ben Potts for a try.  He was also one of the few players who tackled well along with Jack Hinds and they were the reason the Rovers didn’t let in even more tries.

Final Score: Boorowa 10 – Crookwell 36.”

 

 

This week Col headed out to the match between cross town rivals Binalong and the Rovers

He provided the headline Austin’s Powers Not enough to get the Rovers a Victory….and he was pretty close to the mark.

Col said “After last week’s embarrassing loss to the Green Devils, the Rovers needed to bounce back this week and to start, things were looking like they would.

Captain Coach Alex Stewart was back and in a big way, not only is Alex a great player but it’s like he makes his teammates better.

Around the 10 minute mark the Rovers capitalised as Austin Power crossed over. The kick was unsuccessful and the Rovers Led 4-0. They would hold this for a lot of the first half until the Brahmans bounced back with around about 5 minutes left. 

The Brahmans forwards broke loose through the middle and would cross over right under the posts.

Brahmans would convert and going into the second half would lead 4-6.

The Rovers looked deflated and to make things worse Alex Stewart would come out from a tackle with a ripped lip which would put him out for the game, other injuries in the game included Jacob Carmody who suffered a  neck injury which may have him out for the season. But 10 minutes into the second half, Austin Power pinned the ears back and he ran, stepping around defenders like I step around doing the chores, it was incredible, and with an elegant dive over the try line, that would make a deer jealous, he put the rovers up 8-6.

Kick was converted and just like that the Rovers were back up and smiling.

But then it happened, the exact thing that had plagued them all year had struck them again.

There defence was weak and Dylan Arabin who was great on the day would use his shifty footwork and in what seemed like a second, crossed over to tie the game up. A lot was riding on the kick.

This is where heroes are made. He struck it and it was off to the left.

The Score was 10-10 and both sides needed this win.

The Rovers for momentum and the Brahmans to stay in the finals race.

Both sides in the following 10 would have equal chances to win the game as they each got down to the opposing red zone at least twice at the end of the game.

But it was the Man of the Match Dylan Arabin, who would nail the field goal that would sink the Rovers… or so we thought!

The Rovers didn’t recover the short kick off so all hope looked lost.

UNTILL. A one on one strip put the Rovers in striking distance and the crowd was pumped.

A couple of settlers and the last play had arrived, there was bit of hot potato until the pass bounced up from the ground perfectly to Austin Power who tapped it to his outside back who would cross over in the moment of the year?

Or so we thought. The Referee called the pass forward and the Brahmans went home with the victory.

Now my thoughts were the pass was back and he had no right to call it forward, the home crowd was in shock and overall disappointed. I thought the Brahmans did deserve it more and overall it was enjoyable game to watch.

One highlight to be made is on Rovers Front Rower Ben Potts.

Now you might as well call this guy Thomas because he has one hell of a tank engine. He ended the game playing EVERY SINGLE MINUTE.

Overall it was a brave performance from both sides and it should be an exciting end to the season.”

 

Col Voreen