RUGBY LEAGUE
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SUPERB individual performances from Ben McAlpine, Simon Osborne, Mitch Davis and Ryan Griffin inspired their Orange CYMS side to a nine tries to three trouncing of Orange Hawks at Wade Park on Sunday, where the green and golds romped home 50-16.
Osborne and Davis were Herculean in the front row, Griffin was electric in the five-eighth role and McAlpine was simply a class above in Sunday's victory, which captain-coach Mick Sullivan happily labelled one of CYMS' best performances of the 2016 Group 10 premier league season.
In a man-of-the-match performance from fullback McAlpine accounted for 18 of CYMS' points alone through a try and seven conversions - he kicked at 100 per cent too - to go along with his five line breaks, three line break assists and two try assists.
"[Osborne] was outstanding, he and Mitch really punched forward and got us our go forward and [McAlpine] did his flashy stuff. I thought [Griffin] and Toby Westcott were just a bit too quick around the ruck too, that helped us," Sullivan said.
"That's what got us the win in the end, those quick guys going off the back of the hard work the big guys had done.
"We were enthusiastic on our turnover ball and our young guys were really good there. I was impressed with that.
"Even though we broke down a couple of times we were really sharp off the ball on the ground and finished off.
"Where they probably stopped a bit, we kept playing footy."
Injured Hawks captain-coach Jason Gangaram cut a dejected figure after the 34-point thumping, saying his side will "go back to the drawing board" before hosting Lithgow Workies next weekend.
"It's disappointing. The boys were fired up, came out hard in those first 10 minutes but in the end CYMS kept getting quick play the balls and getting a roll on, we were chasing our tails pretty much the whole game," Gangaram lamented.
Hawks had a chance to take an early lead after being gifted an attacking opportunity when Sullivan spilled the first kick-off of the game.
Jordan Baker did go over in the corner in the resulting set, but Jedd Kennedy's pass was ruled forward in what turned out to be a signal of things to come for the two blues.
From there, CYMS took control, running in five tries to one to lead 26-6 at half-time.
Rob Mortimer grabbed a brace while Dylan Wood, Osborne and Cam Jones all crossed in the opening period. Brock McGarity missed his two attempts at goal, before McAlpine slotted the next three.
Kennedy scored Hawks' lone try in the first half.
Sullivan took himself off just before the break to give his younger players more minutes, but CYMS continued the rout in the second half without him.
McAlpine scored just after the break and then put Westcott under the sticks to give CYMS a 38-6 lead after 50 minutes.
Adam Stanford and Griffin scored in the 59th and 61st minutes respectively to push that lead to 50-6 before, surprisingly, Hawks took control of the final stages.
The two blues found another gear while CYMS looked to tire, but curtains had been called well before Baker and Mick Cooper found the stripe.
"It wasn't ideal conceding those two late I think we probably should've finished on top of them," Sullivan said.
"But one was off a kick and you can take that, our guys had done the job before that."
ORANGE CYMS 50 (Rob Mortimer 2, Dylan Wood, Simon Osborne, Cam Jones, Ben McAlpine, Toby Westcott, Adam Stanford, Ryan Griffin tries; McAlpine 7 goals) def ORANGE HAWKS 16 (Jedd Kennedy, Mick Cooper, Jordan Baker tries; Brodie Christopherson 2 goals)