St Brendan’s College take championship with 26-10 win.
Story & Photo By : Scott Minto
St Brendan’s College continued its dominance of the local Rockhampton Open A Rugby League competition on Friday night, beating the highly fancied Rockhampton Grammar 1st XIII to the tune of 26 points to 10.
The lead up couldn’t have been better scripted with both sides not having tasted defeat in the regular season.
Grammar who were steered by Qld U15 representative Luke Callanan started the clash on the wrong side of the scoreboard after SBC benefited from back to back sets to score out wide through the ever-present speedster Marley Wosomo.
The onslaught continued through the next 10 minutes as SBC starved Grammar of possession and made their middle forwards tackling load increase. Their next try would come off some individual brilliance when Matt Hill collected a neat chip from live wire half Owen Pattie.
As the sequence unfolded Hill would tap the ball again to avoid the opposition man before regaining it and offloading in one motion to an unmarked Blake Anders to score under the posts.
Grammar would finally see the ball and when they had their chance, they took it with Callanan linking on this occasion with his Centre to hit back not long from the halfway mark.
Just when you thought the first half could not provide any more action, Matt Hill would again inject himself into the action.Replacements Hooker Quinn Stover skipped out of Dummy-half providing a neat pass at the line for Hill to streak away and find his go to man in Wosomo to score on the stroke of halftime.
The kick was converted with the half time score reading 16-4.
The second half was more even keeled with both sides sharing possession in the opening exchanges. Grammar had their chances as did SBC and with time running out the result would hinge on who would score next.
With ten minutes to go Owen Pattie would take the ball to the line and release a nice pass to Blake Anders who tipped to winger Ian Akiba to score the match winner.
With the game in the bag SBC would not stop there. Akiba celebrated his second in as many minutes when Pattie again laid it on through a slicing run to put the icing on the cake for the night.
Grammar grabbed a late consolation try with a minute to go and the rest would go down in the history books as SBC retained its title once again.
‘Man of the Match’ Owen Pattie was stoked with the team’s performance labelling it as his team’s best of the season.
Special thanks must go to Phil Mitchell and his staff for preparing the boys with limited time this campaign. The Gold team will look to 2021 now with everyone taking part in tonight’s match in grade 11.
Open A: St Brendan’s College 26 (tries: Marley Wosomo 2, Ian Akiba 2, Blake Anders; goals: Blake Anders 3) defeated Rockhampton Grammar School 10 (tries Bronson Ryan, Griffin Keating; goals Luke Callanan). Man of the Match: Owen Pattie (St Brendan’s), Taine Wedel (RGS).
