The light at the end of the tunnel Rams Coach Ian McFarlane has been speaking about in recent weeks, flickered on Saturday as the Rams had a massive 50 point victory over the Bermagui Cobargo Sharks.
The win quite remarkably brings the Rams within two points of the third-placed Crookwell Dogs, despite only winning three games all season.
“It puts us in really good stead now we’re only two points away from the top three which is what we are aiming for,” said Coach McFarlane.
“We travelled down their pretty light and only had two or three reserves. We had a couple of blokes who are probably not ready to play, play off the bench for us.”
“The boys stuck to the process and got the job done, with nine tries which was good,” he said.
The level of talent and desire to improve at the Rams has never been questioned by their coach. However, in recent weeks and particularly in the games where they’ve given up big leads, Ian has wondered if the group believes they can win. He hopes this game serves as a display to his players of just how good they can be when they believe in themselves.
“It’s a huge confidence boost! It puts us within a whisker of top three in our pool and on the bus trip home you can feel the enthusiasm and let’s hope they don’t get too far ahead of themselves.”
“Let’s focus on doing our simple things correct, trust the process and know your role,” he said.
The win on the weekend has increased the stakes of their upcoming game against Cooma, but the Rams are keeping one eye on the “big picture”.
“This weeks going to be a real big test, it’s going to be a turning point this week. If Crookwell lose and we win, we’ll go into the top three and even if Crookwell win and we win we’re still only two behind. They’ve only got one more game left and we’ve got two decent ones against Jindabyne and Taralga.”
“Big picture, it’s getting there. We’re still a work in progress and have a bit of work to do. Sam
Pye-Edwards, our captain, was very good again. Mitch Stevens has really found a home there at fullback. Harry Roach guides them around the paddock at five-eighth.”
“It’s all coming together and hopefully we get some really good training in this week and give Cooma a bit of a touch up,” he said.
Cooma is coming off a forfeit against Bungendore on the weekend. They’ll likely travel light on numbers when they come to Yass on Saturday. Yass five-eighth Harry Roach will man up on his brother Damien Roach of Cooma this week in another engaging narrative to watch closely.
In less positive news, the Yass Ewes fell agonisingly short against the Bungendore Mudchicks on Saturday, losing by only two points.
“Three tries each and they were lucky enough to score one under the posts which you could convert and unfortunately all our tries were wider out and we couldn’t convert any,” said Ewes Coach Stephen Crisp.
“We were very evenly matched and that’s shown in the score. It’s like playing the same team, we’re both very similar in our forward play and the pace of our backs,” he said.
According to Stephen, the room for improvement amongst the group has grown smaller and smaller in recent times, as the Ewes ladies have become far more comfortable in their structures.
“The improvement has been massive. The structure, the retention of the ball and their ability to create opportunities with gaps and the way they’re running the ball was really pleasing.”
“The only thing we’ve got to work out is just those little mistakes that cost us. The forward passes, the pass that didn’t need to be thrown.They’re doing nothing structurally wrong now and are really starting to get into their football,” he said.
Despite not getting the win, Stephen believes his side’s performance on the weekend was as impressive as their early-season wins.
“We did really well early with a couple of representative players playing with us who were fantastic.”
“They weren’t there this week and we still matched it with Bungendore. The whole team now realises that with all these news players that they can do it, they can win. All they need is a little bit of killer instinct when they get close to the try line and I think they’ll be fine,” he said.
The loss drops the Yass ladies to third in their table as they head into a Thursday night game against ADFA at ADFA. The Rams will be hosting the Cooma Red Devils at Victoria Park on Saturday at 2:30 pm.
Max O’Driscoll
