Coach Kai Steele with his team.
It’s a battle as old as time, Kane vs Abel, Ali vs Fraser and Harden vs Young, the latter of which recently featured a monumental win for the underdog Harden/Boorowa Bushhawks.
Being the smaller of the towns, Harden and Boorowa have often been on the wrong end of the scoreline for decades in the juniors. The tables turned last fortnight for the first time for this U14s side. Young played well and will no doubt be there come finals time, however it has been a huge boost for the confidence of the Bushhawks.
Throughout the young men’s lives, whilst accomplishing plenty, one feat they’d never captured was scoring a win against their cross-town rivals.
From the kick-off it looked like the Bushhawks were once againgoing to fall short, with Young establishing their dominance early, scoring a strong unconverted try to lead the home side 4-0.
Not to be kept down for long, the Bushhawks struck back after a bit of brilliance by star half/hooker Jessy Fisher, Jayden Steele nailed the conversion and the Bushhawks were back on track to making history.
The Cherrypickers wouldn’t go away, hitting back and this time converting to make it 10-6. The Pickers would once again cross the line, right on the buzzer this time, Kobe Owen couldn’t add the extras and Young led 14-6 at the break.
It’s hard for any team to put together a comeback, let alone a youthful side who are facing com- petition in which they’re yet to taste victory against. To make things worse for the Bushhawks they’d concede the opening two tries of the second half and would be down 22-6 before they’d finished their orange slices.
Due to some great team play and a bit of individual brilliance; the Bushhawks did the impossible, coming from behind to topple the reigning premiers and put them- selves at the head of the table for the first time.
Coach Kai Steele was proud of the boy’s efforts.“A lot of the kids go to school
together over in Young, so it had a bit of a State of Origin feel to it, they’re all pretty good mates but as soon as they got into the game they just wanted to go out and whack each other, then after the game it all returned to nor- mal,” Kai said.
“It was one of the best games of under 14s footy you’ll ever see, the boys showed a lot of heart and had that never give up attitude that they’ve always given me as their coach. When you’re down that much it’s so easy to lose confidence but they kept their head up and stuck to the task and got the job done.
“They’ve learned from previous games this year, earlier this sea- son it would’ve been a game that we would’ve lost; they pick up everything so quickly they’re just a pleasure to coach and watch and I’m very proud of them.”
The Boys host once again this week against the third-placed Temora Dragons at 9:00 am Saturday in Boorowa.
Tully Potts
