RETURNING St Pat’s fullback Nathan Lawrence sent a warning to the rest of the Group 10 premier league as he bagged a double in his team’s 26-10 away win over the Oberon Tigers on Sunday.
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Injured in the pre-season, Lawrence returned for his first competition appearance in the match at Oberon and wasted no time making the day difficult for the hosts.
A Garry Reilly sin-bin for an off-the-ball shoulder, on the cusp of half-time, stretched the Saints’ defence to the limit.
Once they made it through that period, Pat’s picked the pace up again to put the game beyond Oberon’s reach and bag a much-needed win.
Pat’s coach Kurt Hancock was happy to see his team weather the Tigers’ storm.
“It was a pretty tough match for us up to half-time. Oberon started as they always do against us, very strongly. They probably had more possession, but we never looked like losing the game,” he said.
“With Garry getting sin-binned, there was a 15-minute period there where we really had to hang in there. Individually we’re still coming up with too many errors and it keeps putting us under pressure.
“Nathan Lawrence was outstanding at fullback and Matt Tilley was outstanding in the halves. Benjamin John had a great game as well.”
Lawrence was over first for Pat’s before Adam Morton added another try to his tally on the wing.
Former Pat’s man AJ Piper was over to reduce the gap for the home side.
Pat’s were able to continue making headway on the scoreboard after Reilly’s return to put the Tigers under the pump.
An unconverted Dave Sellers try kept the hosts in the match.
Oberon enjoyed a long stint of possession close to the Pat’s try line over the last 10 minutes of the match to keep their faint winning hopes alive.
Their breakthrough wasn’t to be as Pat’s took their second win over the Tigers this season – this time by a much more comfortable margin than the previous two-point affair at the Sportsground.
“Our defence held up throughout the whole game and that’s a really big positive,” Hancock said.
“That’s probably one of the most physical games we’ve played this whole year.
“After half-time they got that try back and it looked like they were going to make a game out of it, but we got some tries there in the middle of the second half that got the game for us.”
ST PAT’S 26 (Nathan Lawrence 2, Benjamin John, Adam Morton, Jarred Tyack tries; Reilly 3 conversions) defeated OBERON TIGERS 10 (AJ Piper, David Sellers tries; Blake Miller conversion)