DRAMA overshadowed a 28-14 win for CSU Yellow in their Centennial Coal Cup season opener on Saturday as their match against Wallerawang Warriors was brought to an early end following a brawl.
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In was a tense match throughout and by the time the referee called a halt to the match at Diggings Oval, the Warriors only had 11 players on the field.
The Warriors had a player sent to the sin-bin in the second half for abusing the referee and not long after that, a high shot had them two men down.
Then when a Yellow player caught the Warriors’ fullback high with around 15 minutes remaining, it sparked a brawl that forced the referee to call an early end to the match.
CSU Mungoes president James Dunston believed the Yellow squad played a respectable game and praised the referee for trying to keep the match under control.
“They [Warriors] got things back to 18-14, but then they started to lose their cool and make some mistakes ... I have to give full credit to the young ref because I thought he handled the match really well,” he said.
“One of our players caught their fullback high accidentally and then that sparked a brawl and the referee had to call it all off.”
Dunston said Country Rugby League are likely to step in to analyse the footage of the game to determine if any punishment will be handed down to the players involved in the brawl.
Looking past the scrappy ending to an entertaining game, Dunston praised Yellow’s efforts as they fought back after conceding the opening try of the match.
“They scored in the first few minutes. Once the boys figured themselves out, the forwards started to get up through the middle and our backs were good enough to finish out wide,” he said.
The Mungoes hosted a double-header to start their season with CSU Blue unable to follow up on Yellow’s success with a loss against the Lithgow Bears.
Blue went down 30-4 in far less dramatic circumstances against a Bears side who already look like strong finals contenders.
A horror start from Blue saw three tries to the Bears in the first 15 minutes. That period did all the damage as the home side never recovered.
Dunston said the Blue squad had their moments in the second half, but the poor opening got into their heads.
“The score doesn’t reflect how well they played. I spoke to the Lithgow president and it looks like they’ve recruited really well in the off-season,” he said.
“The boys had a tough assignment against Lithgow. They [Lithgow] have a good balance between youth and experience and their forwards are bigger and stronger than ours.”
Dunston was also pleased to see some better balance between the two CSU teams this year in terms of talent.
“This year we’ve made a conscious effort to get some evenness in our two squads. A couple of combinations in the Yellow team have played together before, which helps,” he said.
