Blue Boars extend winning streak to seven with a dominant victory against Gunnedah

A sensational Blue Boars stampede continued on Saturday when Narrabri Rugby Club’s first XV scored a 43-24 victory against Gunnedah Red Devils on home soil in round 12 of the 2024 Central North Rugby Union first grade campaign.

A week after becoming the second team to have beaten all opponents in the competition this year following a 38-31 round 11 top-of-the-table clash victory against the league leaders and the only other team to have beaten all opponents, the Moree Bulls, Craig Gleeson’s men earned their seventh win of the season at Dangar Park as they outscored Gunnedah seven tries to three.

It was their seventh win on the trot since going down by 12 points against Moree in their first game of the season back in round two.

Narrabri crossed for the first try of the game on Saturday in the fourth minute when Charlie Radford went over and the hosts added another soon after when Joe Baker scored 10 minutes into the clash.

Todd Nichols slotted both of those conversions to make the score 14-0, and the next points came off the boot of Gunnedah’s Leo Mortimer after the visitors won a penalty and opted to go for goal in the 17th minute.

It was not 14-3 for long though as Baker scored his second try of the day and Nichols added the extras, which saw the hosts go ahead 21-3 on the 25-minute mark.

Gunnedah got over for their first try soon after and Mortimer kicked the conversion to make the score 21-10, but Narrabri re-established their 18-point lead when Will Ciesiolka claimed the Blue Boars’ fourth try and Nichols slotted his fourth conversion of the day.

The hosts looked set to go into the break leading 28-10 but Raymond Sparrow got over just before half-time for Gunnedah and Mortimer nailed the conversion as the score became 28-17.

The Blue Boars came out firing and scored early in the second stanza when Radford went in for his second of the day, and it became 38-17 when Jydon Hill scooped up a loose ball and charged 75 metres to score.

The Red Devils hit back in the 70th minute when Tim Wilson scored their third and Mortimer converted again to make the score 38-24, but the Blue Boars put the icing on the cake late in the contest when Baker completed a memorable hat-trick as the hosts ran away to win 43-24 and secure all five points on offer.

Making the round 12 victory even more impressive was the fact that Narrabri were without five regular starting players in prop Sam Spanton, second-rowers Josh Schwager and Jake Rumsby, inside centre/skipper Will McDonnell and backline utility/club captain Morgan Jones.

Blue Boars coach Craig Gleeson told The Courier that everyone who stepped in to fill those roles or come off the bench played their part.

“I think that game against Moree (in round 11) took a bit out of us for this weekend,” Gleeson said.

“It was just one of those weekends. There’s been injuries, Willow had his wisdom teeth out on Tuesday and didn’t recover in time, and Spanto is overseas for a couple of weeks. That all put a bit of a hole in us from the week before.

“It’s always difficult having quite a few changes from one week to the next, but we spoke during the week about how no one is here looking after anyone’s jumper, they’re here on their merit and to do a job. That was a big focus of ours, not just on the guys coming in but on everyone because we also had to make a few positional changes as well.

“It’s not about minding someone’s position; it’s about making it your own and doing the job to the best of your ability, and I think most of the boys stood up and did that,

“We were good, overall, considering the amount of personnel changes in key positions we had.

“We started the game really well and carried the ball strongly, especially considering we were missing some of our ball carriers.

“But then I think that we got a bit complacent because of how easy we were going through them. We started to get a bit one out and a bit frantic with our ball carries and lost a bit of composure there.

“Then in the second half, we dipped a little bit, I’d say, but we did defend quite well. We were under pressure for a long time but we only conceded one try in that 40 minutes.

“We viewed this one as a danger game, coming off the week before when there was so much going on around the club and the playing group. Our big focus during the week was not to let Gunnedah slip under our guard, and the way we started the game signalled straight away that we weren’t going to let that happen, so I was impressed there.”

Narrabri looked set to climb to first place but they were forced to settle for second after Moree scored a 41-33 comeback win against fourth-placed Inverell Highlanders at Weebolla Oval to stay on top.

Moree moved to 53 points following that win and Narrabri remained four points back as they climbed to 49 points. Both teams have won seven games and lost one, but Moree has accumulated four extra bonus points across the eight games.

The Tamworth Pirates had a bye in round 12 and finished the weekend with 41 points. They are now three clear of Inverell who are on 38 points following their loss against Moree.
Quirindi had a bye on Saturday and moved to 36 points while Gunnedah remained on 28 in sixth place.

Rounding out the seven-team table are the Scone Brumbies who are now on 21 points following their round 12 bye.

Narrabri’s victory saw them retain the Kookaburra Challenge Cup for the fourth time this year. They have now held it since round seven on Saturday, May 18, when they downed Inverell 34-19 away from home to win it off the Highlanders.

They will travel to Scone in round 13 this Saturday to take on the Brumbies at Scone Rugby Park, the first venue they scored a successful Kookaburra
Challenge Cup defence at almost a year to the day when a Jake Packer-coached Blue Boars team outscored Scone 34-13 on Saturday, July 8 in 2023.

Other CNRU first grade games this Saturday will see Gunnedah welcome Moree and Quirindi travel to Inverell.

Tamworth Pirates have the round 13 bye.