The Snowy River Bears had a mixed first home game for the season with the U18 and Ladies Tag winning convincingly, but the first grade rugby league side being overwhelmed by Merimbula.

The day started well at John Connor’s Oval with the U18 boys on fire from the outset running in a host of early four pointers before eventually running away with an impressive 66-16 victory.

The ladies tag team then kept their opponents scoreless for a fantastic home ground debut, winning 32-0.

The first grade team struggled early and never recovered, and with a host of regular players unavailable, and some players only joining the squad at short notice, they could not withstand the bite of the Merimbula – Pambula Bulldogs who were just too dominant winning 44-14.

Captain coach Andrew Jones who is out for the near future with a rib injury sustained the previous week said his inexperienced side showed plenty of heart although the score line may not have reflected their effort.

“They controlled the ruck better, by holding us down and getting us on our backs” said Jones.

“We were a bit slack in there. Our best control of the ruck was probably in the last 15 minutes I think, we started to get a roll on, and we were defending well.”

“We can still take a lot of positives away out of this game, we were short on troops obviously. A fifty year old and forty five year old playing with us, they haven’t played for twenty years, Jonny Peterson and Rob Zusak, so full credit to them for stepping up and coming along.”

The first grade side is still missing some key players from suspensions dating back to the reserve grade grand final in 2019. In that game fans will remember an all-in brawl to finish the game, and the rugby league administrators have kept the players out of the game since even though last years competition was suspended where they should have served their suspensions.

Shining a positive light ahead, coach Jones said they will look to field their strongest team against arch rivals Bega after the Anzac Day weekend bye.

“I am hopefully fielding our strong 17, it will be a good match to see where we are at. Bega’s a strong side, they always have been, it’s going to be a tough game down there. Hopefully, we can take our best 17 down there and see how we go.”

Asked whether the team puts this game behind them and moves on, he replied, “yeah we do, we can take a lot of negatives and positives out of this and there a few things out of this we need to work on, we pinpoint throughout the game.”

“The positives was a lot of heart shown from the fellas, both our front rowers playing 80 minutes, back rowers a bit the same. There was a lot of positives we can take out of it, a young side other than the fifty year old (laughs) and the forty five year old. Overall, pretty happy with their effort, no one laid down and wanted to give up.”

A big shout out from the club with congratulations to Nick Zusak who at the age of 18 captained the first grade team for their first home game of the season.

Next Round

The competition has a bye this coming weekend for Anzac Day and will resume on May 2 at the Bega Recreation Ground against Bega at 3.10pm

The following week May 9 will see a local derby with the Snowy River Bears taking on the Cooma Stallions in Cooma at 3pm.

Weekend Scores

U18’s won 66-16

Ladies tag won 32-0

First grade lost 44-14

Scroll through photo gallery above.