It was Ladies Day at No.1 Oval on Saturday and anyone within a five kilometre radius of the Dubbo Roos home ground would have heard the music blaring from Victoria Park.
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Bruno Mars, Daryl Braithwaite, Billy Joel, Justin Timberlake and, naturally, Beyonce – the ladies loved a bit of Queen B.
Non-stop pop music and the poetry of rugby seems an odd mix, but there was one moment where the two married up perfectly to help encapsulate the Roos crucial, bonus-point 28-14 victory over defending Blowes Clothing Cup premiers Forbes.
With the game in the balance at 14-all and Roos desperate to keep their 2018 finals chances alive, or at the very least in their own hands, outside centre Tim Beach provided the spark the bluies needed, slicing through just after half-time to score a great try, with Rick James’ 1980s funk hit Super Freak providing a pretty apt accompaniment to a pivotal point in the game.
Beach’s ability to break Platypi tackles verged on freakish on Saturday and his five-pointer, and the conversion from the right boot of Anthony Golding, rocketed Roos to an advantage they never surrendered throughout a gritty second stanza.
Beach was tremendous for the hosts in a man of the match effort, setting up Roos’ second try for skipper Shaun McHugh late in the first term, too.
“I think that’s my third (try) for the season ... I got nothing last year though,” McHugh laughed.
“I’m even counting the ones at training, I’m up to about 15 now.
“But Tim Beach I thought had a blinder, he Tom Mullany, Hamish Gordon and Jock Brownhill, he’s on one leg and he’s still steering us around.
“But Tim in the centres was very good, he created opportunities for us all day.”
All day, except for the opening two minutes, where everything that could go wrong for the hosts, did.
Roos dropped the ball off the kick-off and then conceded two quick-fire penalties to gift a depleted Forbes – the Platypi was minus NSW Country guns Mahe Fangupo and Charlie French – a shot at first points.
Five-eighth Simon Uphill was good enough to capatilise, too, producing a wonderful flat pass to send Forbes skipper Jack Hammond over for the match’s first try, handing the visitors a 7-0 lead.
Roos hit back through Golding and then McHugh to turn a seven-point deficit into a seven point advantage but Uphill, again, lifted Forbes in attacking territory and sliced through to score his side’s second try, locking up the score at 14-all in the shadows of half-time.
Beach’s brilliance and a cleverly worked short-side move off a scrum that allowed Hamish Gordon to cross on the hour mark were the only scoring plays of a second period dominated by Roos’ defence.
Conceding no points in the second half, for McHugh, was almost as pleasing as scoring a bonus point victory.
“For the last three weeks we’ve been pretty soft on our defence … it’s good to have a second half where we conceded no points. It was the aim all game,” he said, adding the only thing separating his side and top dogs like Emus and Bulldogs was silly mistakes.
Roos was again guilty of committing those schoolboy errors on against Forbes.
“We got down their half a lot but the last pass let us down. We’re not far away, this is a pleasing result after a tough few weeks,” he said.
“But this is big for the boys, we’ve been working so hard and not getting the results. It’s nice to turn that around.”
Platypi ace, Hammond said his side just couldn’t get into the kind of rhythm that helped lift the club to last year’s title.
“And every time we got down their end we either knocked it on or gave away easy possessions,” he said.
“It could have gone either way after half-time … and if we’d done two or three things differently we could have ended up on top on the scoreboard, but credit to them.”
- DUBBO ROOS 28 (Anthonyu Golding, Tim Beach, Shaun McHugh, Hamish Gordon tries; Anthony Golding 4 convs) def FORBES PLATYPI 14 (Simon Uphill, Jack Hammond tries; Simon Uphill 2 convs)