Blues bounce back and retain John ‘Dallas’ Donnelly Cup on home soil

Narrabri Rugby League Football Club ensured a massive Collins Park went home happy on Sunday when the Blues beat Gunnedah Bulldogs 36-18 and retained the John ‘Dallas’ Donnelly Cup in the process in the second round of the Group 4 Rugby League campaign.

Narrabri led 18-12 at half-time and outscored the Bulldogs 18-6 in the second stanza to claim the two points.

That was the only game played on Saturday after Boggabri Kangaroos, Moree Boars and Kootingal-Moonbi Roosters all won on Saturday.

Boggabri scored its second home ground victory of the season after it outscored Dungowan Cowboys 44-24 at Jubilee Oval.

The Boars also won at home when they accounted for the Werris Creek Magpies 54-24, while the Roosters scored a 40-16 win away at Manilla against the Tigers.

North Tamworth Bears had the bye in round two.

At Collins Park, Narrabri’s captain-coach Jake Rumsby scored his team’s first try of the contest when the lock forward crashed over in the fourth minute.

Five-eighth Chris Hunt bagged a double and the other three tries were scored by Jacob Booby, Jacob Nichols and Rylee Sadler.

Halfback Todd Nichols kicked all six conversions during a man-of-the-match performance, after which he was awarded the three Group 4 best and fairest points.

The victory was the Blues’ first this season after they went down in their season opener against the Boggabri Kangaroos on Saturday, April 9.

Rumsby told Group 4 Media that he was pleased with his side’s response.

“A much better performance,” he said.

“Great to win in front of a big crowd and as a tribute to Anzac Day. That was special.”

“I put a challenge to them this week,” Rumsby said of his pre-match preparations.

“They knew they had to deliver and they did.

“We made some simple errors at Boggabri and we did make some errors today but were much better and our shape was better.

“We knew Gunnedah were going to come back at us and they did but we finished off well.”

The Blues never trailed on Sunday despite Gunnedah’s best efforts.

Rumsby and Booby scored in the fourth and 13th minutes, respectively, but both times Gunnedah hit back to lock the score up at 6-all then 12-all.

Jacob Nichols was next to score as he darted out of dummy half close to the line and dived through the defence in the 18th minute before his brother kicked his third conversion of the day to make the score 18-12.

That was the way the score remained when the half-time bell sounded as the hosts went into the break with a six-point advantage.

They managed to extend that lead to 12 points just five minutes into the second half.

The Blues were forced to defend on their line early in the second stanza and managed to weather the storm before striking in the 45th minute.

Kenny Allison scooped up the ball out of dummy half deep in his own territory and charged 70 metres upfield to get the Blues within striking distance, and they made the most of the opportunity as Sadler went over between the sticks out of dummy half.

The hosts stretched their lead to 18 points when Hunt made a sensational charging run from 50 metres out and busted several tackles before crossing between the posts to give his halves partner another simple conversion.

The Bulldogs made the score 30-18 with 10 minutes left to play when they went over for their third converted try of the contest, but any hope of a Gunnedah comeback was completely dashed with four minutes remaining when Hunt stepped his way through the Gunnedah defence and planted the ball down for the final try of the contest.

Nichols added the extras to make the final score 36-18.

Earlier in the day, Gunnedah won the ladies’ league tag match 36-10 and prevailed in the under-18s game 44-14, before the Blues claimed the two points in reserve grade with an 18-6 win.

Narrabri will hit the road in round three when it travels to Dungowan to challenge the Cowboys in all four grades on Saturday.