In the last round of the Group 16 competition before the semi-finals, US import Rod Ceasar, “the Florida Flash”, showed just what a potent rugby league weapon he is by scoring four blistering tries against the Batemans Bay Tigers last Saturday.
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The Devils got home 40-26 in a tough clash at Batemans Bay and made it three wins out of three for the Devils on the day.
In doing so Ceasar took the lead in the Group 16 top try scorer award with an amazing 23 tries for the season, but was caught on Sunday by Caine Brierley from Moruya who scored one try against Cooma to make it 23 tries each and equal top try scorers for the season.
A great effort by Rod Ceasar in his first year in Aussie rugby league.
The Devils will now go into the semi-finals in all grades. The Ladies League Tag girls will play Bega in the major qualifying final at Bega on Sunday with the winners to play Minor Premiers Bombala.
The First Grade will play Cooma and the Reserves will play Bermagui-Cobargo - both of these games at Cooma - in the minor qualifying finals. The losers are out for the year.
It will be a huge weekend for the Devils so come and support your team.
Here are the full match reports on each of the games played at Mackay Park on Saturday in what was the last round of the Group 16 season, starting with first grade:
Narooma 40 d Batemans Bay 24
THE Devils looked home and hosed, leading 24-10 at half-time after tries to Rod Ceasar, Clint Wright, Lance Wright and our other US player Sterling Wynn who had a great game and made it 10 for the year to be our second top try scorer.
The Bay looked like a beaten side, even more so after the break when three more tries to Ceasar, including an amazing piece of ball handling which led to him scoring a 90-metre try, saw them clear out to a 40-10 lead.
Lance Wright added four conversions.
The Tigers, however, really put in a great effort to score three tries in the last 20 minutes as the Devils fell into an all too familiar pattern of taking the foot off the gas and making silly errors.
Best for the Devils were the flying Rod Ceasar, Brendon Harper, Sterling Wynn and Gene Willis. Still lots of improvement is possible for this team. Next week’s semi is sudden death.
Reserves
Narooma 62 d Batemans Bay 4
THE Devils Ressies took the field with a strong side and played some excellent football.
The boys hoped a good win would put them in with a chance of moving up a place in the semi-finals race and they certainly played towards that goal but that was not the case and they remain in fourth place due to Bombala defeating Bermagui-Cobargo.
First half tries to Troy Beecham, John Kelly, Merv Naylor, Koorin Campbell, Stephen Brown and Anthony Thomas, with three conversions to Koorin and two to Joel Lansky, had the Devils ahead 34-6 at the break.
Further tries to Troy, Stephen (2), Koorin and Joey Scrymgeour and an amazing conversion by Pat Penton saw the Devils home 62-6.
Unfortunately Pat, it was only a goal not a try so the run is still on!
Best on the day were Koorin Campbell, Troy Beecham and Anthony Thomas with great games also from Sean Stenhouse and the near unstoppable Stephen Brown.
Ladies League Tag:
Narooma 30 d Batemans Bay 4
THE Narooma Girls once again put on a good performance but injuries and unavailability saw them play with only 11 players.
Jamie-Anne Wright, Lilly Bennett and Kira Campbell each scored two tries with Jamie-Anne adding three goals.
Best for the Devils were Jamie-Anne, Abby Stokes, Eadie Lee and Shelby Johnson. They play Bega next week and after their narrow defeat last time need to have everyone on deck for a big effort.