SATURDAY turned on a great day for footy with great weather conditions for the Bowraville Goannas to host Grafton Redmen on Sponsors Day.

Coming off a win from the previous week, Bowra wanted to continue their roll on and start well.

The first ten minutes saw a bit of back and forth rugby where both sides were getting a feel for each other before Bowraville made good use of some structure and field position where they found themselves down in Grafton’s red zone.

Bowra began pressuring the Redmen attack which saw an error and Bowra having a scrum feed ten out.

A dominant run from Clay Saville saw Bowraville crash over for their first try and Scott Rouse kicked the conversion, taking Bowra to a 7-0 lead.

Grafton kicked off and immediately put pressure on Bowra with a quick turnover and had Bowra defending their red zone.

With some extra efforts and scramble defence, Bowra was able to keep Grafton out and forced a turnover of the ball for Bowra to start making their way back out of their end.

The arm wrestling continued for some time with both sides throwing some big bodies at each other and working hard around the ruck.

Bowra slowly gained ascension and began making their way down field and a quality kick and good defence again saw Bowra pressure Grafton into making a mistake.

Bowra quickly capitalised on the error and had the ball in hand where it was quickly spread out wide.

A nice line and some fancy footwork by outside centre Silas Robbins saw him cross the line for Bowra’s second try.

Leighlan Brown kicked the conversion, taking Bowra out to a 14-0 lead.

Grafton continued to fight their way back into the game and were on the attack for the last eight minutes of the first half where Bowraville aimed up in defence with some big hits from Dean Buchanan and Clay Saville and some great cover defence by our big man Chris Humphreys working hard to make a try saving tackle on a back.

Bowra were able to hold Grafton out to half time and both sides got a well earned rest.

The second half commenced and both teams were again at each other in a back and forth contest for the first fifteen minutes.

Bowra was able to mount some pressure and forced a line dropout and soon after Braydon Davis was fingertips away from scoring a try had it not been from some desperate defence of Grafton.

Bowra continued their pressure on Grafton’s try line and a scrum was awarded ten metres out.

Coach Travis Pocock picked off the back of the scrum and with a strong run, crossed over for Bowra’s third try.

The kick by Leighlan Brown was unsuccessful and the score remained at 19-0.

In the final fifteen minutes, Grafton rallied and Bowra gifted them field position with penalties and errors.

Grafton spent a considerable amount of time down in Bowra’s red zone and Bowra continued to defend well but the pressure became too much in the end and a hard run from forward Llisoni Kunabuli saw Grafton cross over for their first try.

Lucas Law kicked the conversion and the final score was 19-7.

A special mention to Lucas Law from Grafton who is only sixteen and played a full game of fly half steering the Grafton boys around.

Points:

High Quality Players’ Player: Dylan Atkins.

3. Clay Saville

2. Chris Humphreys

1. Joe Mckay

A big thank you to our sponsors who showed up on sponsors day to support the boys.

We hope you enjoyed your day and we appreciate the support you have given to the club and hope to see you at games more often.

See you all next Saturday when Bowra will be hosting Hastings Valley Vikings for a 1.20pm kickoff.

By Travis POCOCK