Recap

Near perfect day for Dirty Reds

The Goulburn Dirty Reds capped off an almost perfect day at Poidevin Oval on Saturday with a comprehensive 59-7 win over Tuggeranong Vikings.

Earlier in the day, the Goulburn Women’s side made their competition rugby debut on Poidevin Oval with a strong 34-0 win over Gungahlin and a narrow 15-10 loss to Easts, and the men’s second grade side recorded a stunning 33-24 comeback win against Tuggeranong.

Saturday’s round also marked Goulburn Rugby’s Ladies Day in which the Club showed its appreciation to not only the women players and volunteers, but also the many women who make it pick up the extra workload at home while the men are at training or playing rugby.

The Goulburn firsts were diligent against a team they hadn’t beaten before in the four years of the joined ACT / Monaro first division competition.

Notching up a 50 plus score in as many weeks, the firsts kept a low error count as they set to the task of denying the competition heavyweights of possession.

Goulburn took a 31-7 lead to the break and picked up where they left off. The pace slowed in the middle passage of the second half as a little lethargy crept in and Tuggeranong challenged to fight back into the game. But the Vikings were kept scoreless in the second half by Goulburn’s potent defence, and a final Goulburn surge at the end added three more tries in the final ten minutes.

It was a confident and demonstrative win for Goulburn, picking the firsts up a bonus point win for more scoring at least four tries.

Jackson Reardon had a great day with the boot, kicking seven from nine attempts at conversion including two that took a few flakes of paint from the goal posts on their way through. Jordan Lees picked up a trifecta and new recruit Ben Cheetham picked up a brace of tries along with three best and fairest points and the players player award.

Best and fairest players for Goulburn were Ben Cheetham (3), Adam Lachlan (2), Michael McKillop (1) and Brad Clements (1).

Goulburn 59 (Jordan Lees 3, Ben Cheetham 2, Adam Lachlan, Michael McKillop, Matt Spratley, Simon Graves tries, Jackson Reardon 7 conversions) bt Tuggeranong 7 (Fotofili Namoa try, Federico Pitasi conversion).

The win installs Goulburn as equal competition leaders with Royals, who they’ll play next weekend at Phillip Oval. The ladder is also subject to change as several teams have postponed their matches to be played at a later date.