ORANGE CYMS recovered from an uncharacteristically error-ridden opening half hour to thump Lithgow Workies at Wade Park on Sunday afternoon, running 30 second half points to claim a 46-4 victory.
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The green and golds had a serious case of the dropsies in the opening 30 minutes, which saw the sides locked at 4-4, before finding their mojo and scoring 42 unanswered points from then on.
Sunday was the first time the two sides met since last year’s brawl-marred Group 10 premier league grand final and doubles for Larsen Marabe and Jerome Harrison, along with four-pointers for James Wynne, Mitch Davis, Cam Jones and Ben McAlpine ensured CYMS took the chocolates again.
After being wary of the winless Workies leading – they pushed Bathurst St Pat’s all the way last start - in CYMS captain-coach Mick Sullivan was pleased with the victory and his side’s performance, outside the opening 30 minutes.
“There was just some uncharacteristic offloads and handling errors through that period,” Sullivan said.
“But the 10 minutes either side of half-time was the best patch for us and we closed the game out really well, finished really strongly.
“In those boggy conditions you’ll always take that kind of win, we’ve managed to score 40 plus in our last two games in ordinary conditions so that’s another pleasing aspect.
“After [Workies] had a close one with (Bathurst) St Pat’s I’m sure they were ready to come here and stick it to us, so it is good to get that sort of win over them but we did make it harder for ourselves than it needed to be.”
CYMS had a try disallowed in their first attacking set before Marabe crashed through Lithgow’s right edge defence to open the scoring in the eighth. McAlpine missed the kick, it was his only conversion attempt that would be waved away.
For the next 20 minutes, both sides’ control left plenty to be desired. So much so, CYMS made six ball handling gaffes while Workies had five of their own.
Workies stuck with the green and golds though, rarely looking outclassed and when CYMS let a Jono Van Veen bomb bounce halfback Josh Jones pounced to get Lithgow on the board.
He missed the kick to leave the score at 4-4.
That brain fart seemed to kick CYMS into gear and Marabe scored his second not long after, brushing through some flimsy Workies defence to score next to the uprights and James Wynne darted over from dummy-half in the shadows of half-time. McAlpine’s two conversions gave CYMS a 16-4 lead.
Before the break Marabe found space again and with just the fullback to beat he shaped to kick before looking left, looking right and then – comically – dropping it cold as he finally decided to tuck it under his wing.
Bouyed by the 7-0 first half penalty count in their favour – which would end up 15-4 at full-time – CYMS took the 12-point lead into the break.
Harrison scored his first straight after half-time, which signalled the opening of the floodgates.
He scored again in the 71st, after Davis and Jones had gone in and before McAlpine crossed in the 79th.
McAlpine kicked all five goals to complete the 46-4 win, finishing with a 18-point haul of his own.
“Four-all probably isn’t where we wanted to be after half an hour but we reacted to that well which was pleasing,” Sullivan said.
“We went in to half-time with the lead and came back out with that same attitude and put the game to rest pretty quickly after half-time.
“We were good in finishing it off, didn’t give them too many chances and defended really well.
“There was a few things we did wrong early, but once we got into our work we were pretty good.”
ORANGE CYMS 46 (Larsen Marabe 2, Jerome Harrison 2, James Wynne, Mitch Davis, Cam Jones, Ben McAlpine tries; McAlpine 7 goals) def LITHGOW WORKIES 4 (Josh Jones try)