The Snowy River Bears showed plenty of bite in their first home game of the season against Merimbula Pambula at John Connors Oval.
The Group 16 rugby league competition kicked off in grand style for the Snowy River Bears hosting the Merimbula Pambula Bulldogs in Jindabyne, the bears going ever so close to a clean sweep on the day. If not for the final 10 minutes of first grade, where the home side gave up cheap penalties and looked fatigued allowing some soft tries and a drawn game, it would have been the perfect start.
In ideal playing conditions the ladies tag team won 20-14, the reserve grade an impressive 42-0 and first grade will rue letting an early lead slip away settling for a 22-22 draw against the Merimbula Pambula Bulldogs. In the U18's game, the Cooma Stallion won 36-4 playing at Jindabyne.
Cooma U 18
Stallions 36 Bulldogs 4
The first match of the day saw the U18 Cooma Stallions playing in Jindabyne as their club surprisingly will not field either a reserve grade or first grade side this season. This is a huge disappointment for Group 16 rugby league. The Cooma U18s' are likely to play as the lead game in most Jindabyne home games this season and if their form is any indication, they look the goods.
The young side looked quite polished and showed plenty of flair as they ran away with the result over the Bulldogs. It is sure to be one of many wins for Cooma this season.
Ladies Tag
Bears 20 Bulldogs 14
The ladies showed plenty of spirit in their game even though there was some poor handling. Coming from behind to clinch the victory it was encouraging with coach Rob Zusak happy with the result saying, "it was a fantastic effort all round from start to finish, started a little bit slow and finished strongly".
Considering some players are only starting their league career, the team have room for improvement. "It's going to be a fantastic season and we can only go further from here," said Zusak.
Reserve Grade
Bears 42 Bulldogs 0
The Snowy River Bears started with their foot on the accelerator in reserve grade and never let it off, in the end romping away with an impressive 42-0 victory of the Bulldogs.
In the first half the forwards were particularly strong with great efforts gaining valuable meters and keeping the Bulldogs defence working. Cooper Swan scored in the corner, Liam Pepper scored a try and was strong in the centres, Keegan Caldwell bagged a hattrick of tries and converted 5 goals in a great performance. Liam Rankin, Riley Casey and Colin Shingles also scored tries.
First Grade
Bears 22 Bulldogs 22
The game had barely started when a huge bell ringer hit from Joshua Hitchens popped the ball out of the Bulldogs hands resulting in an easy runaway try to Tristan Hamilton within two minutes.
The bears then set about their task and soon accumulated more points going to the sheds at half time with a handy 18-10 lead. Additional first half tries went to Nic Marshall and Joshua Hitchins.
When Joshua Hitchins scored again in the second half stretching the lead to 22-10 it looked like the bears were set to take the winning honours. But the Bulldogs were not done yet and clawed their way back into the game.
With tired defence and a series of stupid penalties from the Bears, the boys from the coast kept chipping away and in the end Merimbula scored twice within the last ten minutes to salvage a draw. Fatigue by this time had set into the Bears game. At the conclusion the Bears missed the victory but for the first 70 minutes looked strong and played with plenty of intent.
Physical is a good description of the game with both teams trying to dominate with big hits and numerous high shots that seemed to go undetected by the match officials.
Bears Captain Coach had his view on the physicality saying after the game, "Very physical game, it was bloody good, it was great."
"The refs and the touchy you probably couldn't have asked for a better game from them to. They just let the physical battle roll, that's what you want in a footy game and that's what the crowd turns up to watch as well," said Jones.
Jones said there are a lot of positives and acknowledged many of the team had not played with each other prior. "Overall fairly happy, we worked to a couple of sets that we've been were working on, so you can take a lot of positives out of today and keep building. We just need to find our feet a little bit."
Photos from all grades in scrolling gallery above.
