Thrills and late drama
Games down to the wire
There was plenty of drama on Saturday in Townsville’s Agrade rugby league competition, as 32 tries were scored across three thrilling fixtures.
Eight players bagged at least two tries, with Herbert River’s Benn Campagnolo picking up a hat-trick in his team’s heartbreaking 34-32 loss to Centrals.
The only team not to have a player score a brace, Charters Towers, scored one of the most exciting tries of the round when schoolboy sensation Assariah Lenoy dotted down in the corner to give g fullback Blake Heitmann n a sideline conversion n attempt to win the game.
The Snakepit t would have bro- ken into even n rowdier celebra- tions had the kick ck sailed through the posts, but it missed sed by a whisker to cement ement the 32-32 draw.
Charters Towers Miners coach Shaun Casey (pictured) couldn’t praise his team enough for their stout defence.
“We basically just tackled for the first 25 minutes, Souths came with a game plan and they executed really well early on,” Casey said.
“They made very little errors and got a lot of repeat sets so I can’t fault our guys’ effort, they defended their backsides off.
“We didn’t make a lot of errors, it was certainly our best performance of the year, but we spoke at halftime about some soft tries defending our line.”
Souths found themselves holding a 10-point lead with 10 minutes to go, but a try to Harry Mcqueen cut the deficit late in the match.
In the final play of the game, Mcqueen perfectly executed a two-on-two to put Lenoy over near the sideline to set up the potential matchwinner.
“Assy (Lenoy) had an outstanding game for us, he picked up our man of the match and we had a lot of strong candidates,” Casey said.
Up in Ingham, the Campagnolo hat-trick was not enough to get the Crushers over the line as Robert Lui kicked Centrals C to an incredible credi come-frombehind beh win.
There could have h been two 32-all draws this weekend, but Lui’s sideline conversion after the final bell earned the Tigers Ti their fourth winof win of 202 2023.
Centrals coach Luke Harlen said he was glad he could rely on the NRL experience of Lui.
“To say we got out of jail is the understatement of the year,” Harlen said.
“We put up a kick and the poor winger put it down and Kohen Briggs dotted it down to tie it up, then Robbie stepped up and nailed the conversion from the sideline.
“We got lucky at the end there but we’ll take that.”
In the other match Brothers were too strong for Western Lions, winning 36-10 thanks to doubles from Nathan Norford, Marshall Hudson and Kalifa Faifai-loa.