‘Pickers close the gap on ladder leaders despite 14-point loss

Young headed into the weekend’s match well aware of the threat Southcity posed, having posted two 70-point wins against Tumbarumba and Tumut in recent weeks.

Captain-coach Neil Thorman again said his side were slow off the mark, and combined with little errors led to Southcity taking the first match points.

Young levelled the score to 6-all after a break from Haydn Cowled who offloaded to Matt Murray, resulting in a try on the left hand side through James Woolford.

This would be Young’s first and only try during first half.

“We started by doing something positive, and would follow up doing something negative like giving cheap ball away which would lead to [Southcity] scoring,” Thorman said.

Second half started similar to first, with Young being on the backfoot and allowing Southcity to score. But the ‘Pickers came back firing with two tries by the Kiwi signings to put them back into the game.

“We went on and started to settle into the game a bit more with two back-to-back tries by Denvour on the right wing and Mitch Ryan crashing over to close the line,” Thorman said.

Jack Bush also chipped in his two cents worth with a well-worked play from a set play off a scrum.

“We started scoring on the team and I can’t really fault the effort in defence, there were just some slight decision making on our line that led to Southcity scoring, and a couple of penalties which was just down to fatigue really,” Thorman said.

Southcity eventually took a 14-point victory over Young in what’s by far the closest outcome overall against the team this season.

Thorman was pleased with his team’s effort, in particular that of powerhouse props Aaron Slater and Kyle Richens.

“Aaron led from the front - his aggression and willpower as well as being the size that he is is quite a force on the field,” he said.

“He played 40 minutes in the second half, it’s big minutes for a prop and props don’t generally do that, but he never really weakened.

“Same with Kyle Richens.”

Thorman was also happy with the performance of Mitch Ryan in his debut with Young.

“He has an impact off the bench, he did really well,” he said.

“He came on and got good yardage from his first touch, he was aggressive and he scored on his debut as well. 

“He’ll form quite a nice partnership with Aaron Slater.”

As a team Young showed improvement from the outside backs, and made good yardage coming out of their half with returning the ball from kicks.

“On the back of that performance we did have some positives out of the game, so we’ll keep on working on those,” he said.

While Thorman is pleased with his team’s result from the weekend he knows the importance of getting a win on the board.

“It is important to start getting these wins but you know you’re not going to get the wins without good performances, and we showed ourselves against Southcity that we are very capable of playing good football against good teams. 

“So there are encouraging signs and we’ll take that into next week and use it against Tumut.”

Young felt the brunt of South City in another three grades, with the Under 16s going down 34-36, the Under 18s missing out 24-25, Reserve Grade losing 16-26 and the Cherryettes posting a 54-0 victory.

The Young Cherrypickers Rugby League Football Club reported their Anzac Day round to be a success, with the auctioning off of a tribute jersey at $750. 

Proceeds will go to Legacy.