Eden Tigers RLFC News Article

Cooma too strong for Tigers

Cooma 34 Eden 10

May 16th 2010 by Dave Evelyn

The Great Southern Inn Tigers first grade undertook the annual pilgrimage to Cooma last weekend to face the highly fancied Stallions. After encountering fog from the top of Brown mountain all the way to Cooma, the ground was bathed in marvellous autumn sunshine much to the relief of spectators and players alike.

The referee's opening whistle was still echoing around the ground when Cooma received their first penalty and Jeff Donald strolled through a yawning gap to score the easiest of tries and Cooma were playing from the front to the tune of 6-0.

Early exchanges were , as expected, torrid, with Brad Chatfield, CC Leigh Hennessy, Tom Bell and Neil Baker being heavily involved. The Tigers were set back on their heels in short time when Cooma scored again, this time Clay Stewart crossing to take the score to 12 nil. The Tigers had only had one possession and looked to be struggling to contain the big mobile Cooma pack. This was reinforced when Cooma gained possession following an Eden handling error and scored their third try to take the score to 18-0.

The visitors stocks rose slightly when evergreen Darren Griffin crossed out wide after good lead up by Chatfield and a clever offload from John Aldridge to reduce the margin to 18-4. From the restart Cooma regained possession , got six more tackles due to an Eden touch, and scored the try of the day to Nick Moan down the right wing.

With the score on 22-4 things were looking grim for the Tigers. Tyrone Thomas was playing strongly at full back and Billy Michelin, playing with 17 stitches in a head wound from last match, was inspirational, but the score remained the same up to half time.

The loyal legion of Tiger diehards had hopes for a second half revival, and with Michelin again leading from the front the Tigers looked to be matching the home side, and were unlucky not to score on a couple of occasions. Unfortunately Eden's handling was letting them down, and after another such lapse Cooma scored again to take the score to 28-4. Livewire Tom Bell, who was in everything, was rewarded with a try after Eden received a rare penalty, taking the score to 28-10.

A highly disputed try to Cooma's Mark Kelly , awarded after he appeared to be comfortably tackled into touch by Neil Baker , finished the home side's scoring. For the Tigers, John Aldridge scored a late touchdown, but on the day the Cooma side were simply too good. The final score was 32-14. The Cooma forwards hunted as a pack and continually made inroads into the Eden defence with short balls and support runners, while Eden's handling let them down and we missed far too many first up tackles. The side is still building combinations and battling injuries to several key players. But we have a proud tradition at the Tigers and there is a lot of class in the Eden side which will undoubtedly come to the fore in future rounds.

TIGGER