Forbes Platypi has suffered their first loss of the season, going down to the Cowra Eagles 33-22 on Saturday.
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Played at the Cowra Rugby Ground, the hosts starved Forbes of possession during the early stages of the Blowes Clothing Cup round seven match, racing to a 14-0 lead courtesy of tries to Murphy and Adam Higgins, both converted by Alex Webster.
Both sides crossed for a further two tries respectively and Cowra held the advantage 28-10 at the break.
Forbes, playing their first game in three weeks, won the second stanza but Cowra’s defence remained stubborn enough to hang on and win 33-22, despite the 12-5 second half scoreline thanks to tries to Forbes players Jarrod Hall and Josh Coulthurst.
Forbes coach Heamani Lavaka admitted his side’s bye schedule harmed their momentum, but conceded Cowra was too good.
“Pretty happy we get a bonus point after a really bad performance in the first half,” Lavaka said.
“I know it was hurting us, we have had three weeks off footy, the last two weeks we’ve had the bye so to come back from that is tough.
“But Cowra played really well, they defend well. Even in that second half we got a few chances but their defence was really good.”
Lavaka said he had six players out on Saturday, which didn’t help.
“We have Emus next week, we had about six out and I’m hoping they all come back,” he said.
“I’m not saying that’s why we played bad today, I had the team to do the job and Cowra were too good.”
Cowra stand-in captain Jimmy Montgomery said he was very happy with Cowra’s performance.
“We knew they were coming off a two week bye and expected them to come out fairly hard and they did,” he said.
“It could have been more, there’s still a few things we need to sharpen up in attack. And especially in defence every time we invited them down in the 22m they scored.”
The Platypi will take on top-of-the-table Orange Emus this Saturday in front of a home crowd.
The Emus are currently undefeated with 34 points, while Forbes is now sitting in third place on the table with 24 points, one point behind second-placed Dubbo Kangaroos.
“We have Emus at home so we’ll start focus on that,” Lavaka said.
Cowra Eagles 33 (Ryan Murphy 3, Adam Higgins, Alex Webster tries; Webster 4 goals) defeated Forbes Platypi 22 (Jarrod Hall 2, Joshua Coulthurst, Adrian Cole; Matthew Kilgore goal).