A great win for a determined Devils outfit was only soured by a possible serious second half knee injury to captain/coach Clint Wright.
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The Bulldogs opened the scoring with an unconverted try within the first five minutes after play had see-sawed from end to end before a charging Neil Graham scored for Narooma and Lance Wright, returning after six weeks out injured, converted to give Narooma the lead at 6 to 4.
Junior representative player Teig Wilton, who had a great game on his senior debut, was next to score followed by tries to Lance Wright and Riley Hextell and two conversions to Lance Wright saw the Devils go in at half time with a handy lead of 22 to 4 despite turning over possession often. At half-time, Clint Wright urged his team to cut down on its errors and complete their sets in the second half and the improvement was immediately obvious.
Roderigus Caesar and Clint Wright scored tries before two converted tries to the Bulldogs brought the score back to 32 to 16. Narooma then asserted its dominance for the remainder of the match with a second try to Neil Graham, following a 50-metre burst on the kick return by fullback Lance Wright, and a double to Rod Caesar. The accurate Koorin Campbell converted Narooma’s last three tries, one from the sideline, to give a final score of 50 to 16. Narooma Devils 50 (Tries: R Caesar 3, N Graham 2, T Wilton, L Wright, R Hextell and C Wright. Goals: L Wright 4 and K Campbell 3) defeated Merimbula-Pambula Bulldogs 16.
Plenty of points on offer
The Narooma Reserves met a much bigger Candelo-Bemboka side in a physical and, at times, spiteful encounter with the reserves, through better teamwork and superior fitness finally prevailing 54 to 36.
After conceding an early converted try to the Panthers, a great run from Elijah Blair set up a try to Stephen Brown to open the scoring for Narooma. Tries to Yuin Campbell and Ian Hoskins followed for Narooma to lead 14 to 6. Candelo-Bemboka answered with a try, before a Troy Cook try, converted by Ryan Norris, and a try to Ninnum Parsons had Narooma skip out to a 24 to 12 lead. A try to the Panthers in the final seconds of the first half left the game on a knife edge at 24 to 18 at the break.
Narooma opened the scoring for the second half with a try to Koorin Campbell after Stephen Brown had sliced through. Four more tries to Ryan Norris, Ninnum Parson John Kelly and “swervin” Mervyn Naylor had Narooma racing away to a convincing win. On Sunday, Narooma travels to the Dickinson Oval at Bermagui to take on Eden in the ladies’ league tag at 12.00pm, Cobargo-Bermagui reserves at 1pm and Eden seniors at 2.30pm.