Narrabri and District Junior Rugby League’s under-13s and under-15s teams ran out onto Collins Park for their 2022 North West Group 4 Junior Rugby League third-round matches on Saturday morning.

The under-13s side lost 28-24 in a close contest against the Gunnedah Bulldogs before the Junior Blues won the under-15s match against the North Tamworth Bears by the same scoreline.

Those games were played at Collins Park, the home of Narrabri Rugby League Football Club’s senior Blues teams, as Cooma Oval was washed out after Narrabri received rain late last week.

The sun came out to shine down on the teams on Saturday and provided warm conditions as the three clubs produced two entertaining contests.

The junior Blues’ 13s side went into the half-time break trailing 10-6 in the first game of the day.

Frazer Penberthy scored a try and converted it himself, but the visitors crossed for two tries and converted one to go into the break ahead by four points.

Narrabri went behind by 10 points early in the second stanza after the Bulldogs scored their third try and kicked the conversion, but the hosts hit the lead when Chayce Browning and Lucas Duff powered their way over for a try each, both of which were converted by Frazer.

That made the score 18-16, but the visitors hit back with two converted tries to make the score 28-18.

Narrabri scored late when Chayce crossed for his second. Frazer slotted his fourth conversion to finish the day with a 100 per cent strike rate, but the Junior Blues went down by four points.

In the under-15s match, Narrabri went behind 6-0 early in the match before skipper Jack Anderson scored a try and Clay Hoffman converted it to make the score six apiece.

Norths regained the lead with their second converted try, and then Clay made the score 12-8 at half-time when he kicked a penalty goal just before the break.

The home side came out firing in the second stanza and hit the lead when Lincoln Browning charged over and Clay added the extras to make the score 14-12.

Narrabri then established an eight-point lead when Clay converted a Darcy Weatherall try after the hooker dived over out of dummy half close to the line.

Norths then scored a converted try to reduce their deficit to two, which then became six when Toby Galagher went over for Narrabri.

The visitors scored their fourth try of the contest late in the match to level the score up at 24-all, but Narrabri had the final say with a nice through-the-hands play that allowed Clay to dive over into the left corner to score the match-winner.

He missed a tricky kick from the sideline, however, the try was enough as Narrabri won the contest 28-24.

Narrabri will play at home again on Saturday in the fourth round of the season when it meets North Tamworth at 10am and Kootingal at 11am. Those games will both be played at Cooma Oval.

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