DESPITE a frenzied start from Bathurst Panthers Orange CYMS produced a sparkling performance to down the men in black 34-16 in Sunday’s Group 10 premier league top-of-the-table match -up at Carrington Park.
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Panthers scored the opening two tries of the game before CYMS switched on, running in 34 points to four after that to seal the win, which sees the green and golds shoot to the outright competition lead – the two sides had been equal on points before Sunday’s blockbuster.
The win also brought Panthers’ seven-game winning streak to an end.
Trailing 12-0, CYMS took advantage of Panthers’ errors and sustained pressure through the middle of the field to gain momentum.
Once they had that momentum CYMS were rarely threatened, going into half-time up 22-12 before extending the margin further when they came back onto the field.
“Coming in off some wet games we might have tried to be a bit expansive and our ball carrying was poor (early),” CYMS captain-coach Mick Sullivan said.
“Credit to them, they came out on fire and scored some great tries. We had to weather that, we did.”
“We had a pretty good start to the game … CYMS got a couple of tries to get it back close to even and I think our game pretty much fell apart a little bit after that,” Panthers manager Danny Dwyer said.
“We’ve been getting away with that in the last few games, making a lot of mistakes but still winning the game.
“I don’t think we could play that badly again, to be honest. Our completions were probably worse than what they’ve been all season.”
A penalty for backchat against CYMS led to Panthers taking their first try of the day seven minutes in through winger Callum Young.
On a quick play-the-ball Panthers centre Blake Lawson soon doubled the advantage.
In a game that was threatening to get away from them CYMS soon recovered, led by a superb performance from prop Simon Osborne.
A strong Osborne run helped set up Robbie Mortimer in the left corner with 18 minutes gone before CYMS went in on the very next set, Semisi Katoa’s try reduced Panthers’ lead to just two.
CYMS picked up two more tries before half-time, once again in back-to-back sets, to take a 10-point lead into the break.
Thanks to an offload from second rower Larsen Marabe, Ben McAlpine had plenty of space to score under the posts.
McAlpine then helped set up the next try with a 50 metre break, which was finished off by Brenden Cousins.
Young scored his second not long after to make it 22-16 but it was all one-way traffic from that moment onward.
Tries to Ryan Griffin and Todd Murphy took the visitors out to a 32-16 lead as Panthers struggled to find a way inside the CYMS’ half.
With next to no time left on the clock Ben McAlpine slotted a penalty goal.
ORANGE CYMS 34 (Semisi Katoa, Robbie Mortimer, Ben McAlpine, Brenden Cousins, Ryan Griffin, Todd Murphy tries; McAlpine 5 goals, pen goal) def BATHURST PANTHERS 16 (Callum Young 2, Blake Lawson tries; Jeremy Gordon 2 goals)
