Senior Grade travelled to Trumper Park on Saturday and acquitted themselves honourably.
Up against an infinitely stronger side, the Rams battled on well and did themelves proud.
Although a win was out of the question early on, the efforts of the Rams 22 - together with the opposition`s inaccurate kicking - meant that the end margin was kept within a reasonable level.
Final scores were: Opponents 14.29 (113) d Penrith 3.6 (24).
Unfortunately, Reserve Grade was unable to muster the numbers to make the trip to Trumper. Given the thrashings handed out by the home side to the lesser clubs, this may not have been such a bad thing however. Hopefully the situation can be turned around this week at home against the Southern Sharks.
A match report from Head Coach Jason Bradley follows:
We came into this match on the back of a morale boosting win the previous week. With a few notable omissions from the squad from last week we had a big task of competing on an equal level against one of the strongest teams this season.
We welcomed back John Keane to the side after a long layoff due to injury and what a relief it was to see him take up his usual place on the last line of defence.
I would like to congratulate all the players for putting in one of the best displays of heart and determination I have seen this season. Every single player did the best they could and not once did they drop their heads and allow the opposition to run over the top of them.
Every single player should keep their heads up after this match as not one player could be faulted for the way they continued to battle it out to the very end. UTS were made to work very hard for every single possession and the pressure that we placed on them was easily the best of the season from us.
Great defensive work led by Keanie & Jay Edwards held our match heralded opponents to a very low score by their own standards. Our only major problem for the day was our inability to take advantage of that defensive work by capitalizing on our forays into our own forward line. We were too slow in delivering the ball to our key forwards and when we did deliver the ball it was more often than not straight to the opposition. If we are to hold the ball up it is essential that we then hit our intended targets otherwise all our efforts to get the ball to that point in time have been futile.
In the end, I think UTS would have been very disappointed in their performance and that can only be attributed to one thing and that is the way we played them. Well done to every player and if we can take the attitude that we played with on the weekend into our next few games we could really cause some problems for our opponents.
As I said, every player should hold their heads up on the overall performance of the side. Let’s take that positive frame of mind into this weekends match against Southern Sharks at home.
Jabba
Last Modified on 21/04/2010 22:22