Reserves Go Down Fighting
Eden 10 Cooma 20

May 8th 2011 by Dave Evelyn

The Tigers reserve grade lined up for their first match of the season when they travelled to Cooma last weekend. The Club was embarrassingly short of players last weekend and were forced to forfeit the under 18 clash. Many of the 18's lined up in the reserve grade clash. The game started well for Eden until Cooma's Ian Robinson scored on the back of consecutive sets to Cooma. For the Tigers Wayne Wykes was making his presence felt in both attack and defence, Reece and Dylan Wheeler were working hard and Merv Bamblett was heavily involved. Once again Jamie McLeod was very impressive and new recruit Chris Mongta-Kelly showed glimpses of class and will be a big asset to the team.

Cooma were found guilty of a poor play the ball, a scrum was formed and Eden's Merv Bamblett duly scored adjacent to the posts and then converted to level the scores. Poor handling by the Tigers allowed Cooma to score next through John Kaufline who crossed untouched in the corner to take Cooma to a 10-6 lead. The game was becoming a bit scrappy as the break neared with both sides coughing up the ball. When Cooma were awarded a penalty for offside and failed to find touch, Eden spilled the ball and Cooma's Dean Wolf promptly scored to give the home side a handy 14-6 lead at half time.

Wayne Wykes driving the shoulder into the Cooma ball runner with support from Merv Bamblett over the top

Coach Kevin "Bambi" Campbell was positive at half time and emphasised that the team was well in the match but that we needed to get through our sets and eliminate some basic mistakes. The second half began with a preview of what the crowd was in for over the rest of the day when each side was penalised for poor play the balls. Neither side were getting to their kicks and the game was becoming scrappy as penalties continued to be distributed generously. Eden's Wayne Wykes, who was Eden's standout player, scored the next try after the Tigers received three consecutive penalties and the score moved on to 14-10 to Cooma with plenty of time left for the Tigers to pull off a victory.

In the last 12 minutes of the game 8 penalties were awarded which stifled the expectation of an exiting finish. Five of those went to Eden but the boys were unable to post the vital try and when Cooma's John Kaufline scored his second try right on the bell Cooma had recorded a victory by 20-10.

This was a game the Tigers should have won comfortably, a fact the coach pointed out after the game. We need all our senior players to get to training on Tuesdays and Thursdays to get this side performing to the standard they are capable of.

A copybook tackle from Reece Wheeler forces a Cooma mistake.