OBERON Tigers Group 10 premier league coach Zac Rowlandson hopes the club’s three-team appearance in the finals series is the beginning of something special.
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A vocal and passionate Tigers crowd turned up to the Oberon Sports Ground on Saturday to watch their club take part in premier league, reserve grade and under 18s elimination finals.
Tigers missed out on progressing in all three games.
However, it remained a big moment for the club who welcomed a Group 10 finals match to the town for the first time in 50 years.
Plus, the last time the Tigers had managed to get all three men’s grades into the finals series was in 1976.
Rowlandson came to the premier league coaching role with the ambition of turning the club around from wooden spooners to Group 10 champions.
Although he’s come up short in that goal he’s hopeful the interest generated by the club’s results this season leads to bigger and better things.
“There’s three grades in the semis, a lot of interest and a big crowd here today and that sort of thing carries over to next year,” he said.
“To go from last to where we got to is still a pretty big turnaround so it’s hard not to be proud of it.
“We showed our potential and we’ve got a lot of young blokes that are coming through so there’s a lot to look forward to.
"All the boys are keen to go again so we don’t have to do too much work to keep us going.”
Rowlandson’s Tigers went down 42-22 against the Mudgee Dragons on Saturday.
The coach said the was loss was somewhat easier to take knowing that the Dragons put in a super performance.
“They were good up the middle and we didn’t counter it. That’s probably one of the quickest games I’ve played in,” Rowlandson said.
“It was an arm-wrestle for a good 40 to 45 minutes then they got the upper hand. It’s not as hard to get beaten by a side that’s playing that good and I think they’ll go a long way. The further they go makes it more positive for us.”
Tigers went down 14-12 against the Cowra Magpies in reserve grade while the Bathurst Panthers knocked the hosts out of under 18s with a 28-20 victory.