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Cottesloe overpowered minor premiers Palmyra by an unexpected 27-6 at Members Equity Stadium today to win the 2009 grand final of the WA rugby club competition, sponsored by KWIK Crane and Transport Hire.
Cottesloe’s predictable game plan of shutting Palmyra out of the game through forward control was well on course by half time despite the narrow 3-0 margin, as they dominated territory and possession to deny the Melville club all but the most limited opportunities.
Palmyra’s errors didn’t help their cause and when Cottesloe added a try mid-way through the second half, the writing was on the wall for the increasingly panicked minor premiers. A couple of late tries blew out the score to flatter the Seagulls but the win was just reward for their composed, dominant play that choked Palmyra out of the title they most coveted.
For Cottesloe, the quiet achievers of the 2009 season, it was a stunning result and a credit to coach Ian Fowler and his players for the business-like way they went about their game. For coach Dave Ball and Palmyra it was desperate disappointment after winning the minor premiership with an exciting brand of running rugby, one season after taking the wooden spoon.
Cottesloe Take Out Premiership Final
Image Courtesy of Matthew Greenfield | Perth Sports Photography
Cottesloe began the game as they meant to continue, controlling territory and possession to dominate the opening passages with smothering effectiveness. Palmyra barely saw the ball until Cottesloe knocked on after 15 minutes, halfback David Serukai swooping to take play into the Seagull’s 22 for the first time. However a Palmyra knock on stopped the movement and Cottesloe kicked clear.
Cottesloe returned the game to Palmyra's half where repeated Paly mistakes helped keep the Seagulls on attack. The Seagulls broke through and almost scored after 29 minutes but knocked on under the posts. Palmyra were under enormous pressure in the resulting scrum but passed the ball wide in goal where wing Johnny Vasukilakau bashed and barged his way through through six tackles to take play back to half way.
There Paly conceded one too many ruck offences and referee Julian Pritchard sent Palmyra number 8 Filipe Manu to the sin bin for repeated cynical infringements, Cottesloe flyhalf Dave Cloete landing a monster 50 metre penalty to open the scoring 3-0, after 32 minutes.
Cottesloe went back on attack but after ten fruitless minutes Manu returned to the field, Palmyra not having conceded further score since the penalty. Immediately Palmyra broke blind from a ruck, Serukai running clear to cross the line out wide -- but unfortunately for Palmyra, dropped the ball over the line in what might have been a defining moment for the game. Half time followed immediately after.
Cottesloe opened the second spell with more of the same, trying variations of switch passes in close and chip kicks, but almost came unstuck when a rare poorly judged kick from Cloete was nabbed by Palmyra centre Feleti Leka Lolohea and he scampered 30 metres before run down from behind 15 metres short of the try line, injuring an ankle in the process.
Instead Palmyra settled for a simple penalty goal to flyhalf Quintyn Austin when Cottesloe were caught offside defending their line, and it was 3-3 after nine minutes.
Cottesloe went right back on attack and almost scored three minutes later after a clever Cloete grubber kick through under the posts but Paly fullback Scott Bowley won a close race to touch down in goal.
Cottesloe stayed on attack, winning free kicks in Paly's 22 to keep the pressure on in a tight grand final, loose forwards and backs combining in attacking combinations. But Paly's quality backs were as good in defence as in attack and big hits repeatedly knocked the attack back.
However, the pressure eventually told and Palmyra defenders piled over a ruck five metres out in front of the posts to concede a sitter penalty, converted by Cloete after 17 minutes for a nail-biting 6-3 lead.
Cottesloe's control of territory remained total as they played the perfect finals game to trap Paly in their half and when the minor premiers turned over on the 22 the ball went wide on an overlap, quick passing between the outside backs putting wing Ben Mitchell in the clear for a try in the corner. Cloete rose to the occasion with a sideline conversion and the Seagulls claimed a vital 13-3 lead after 22 minutes.
Paly gained a huge attacking opportunity minutes later with a sizzling sideline run on an overlap, but desperate Cottesloe tackles stopped the movement short of the line. Cottesloe fullback Sam Parker mishandled loose ball on the try line to gift Paly a five yard scrum, and the Seagulls conceded a sitter penalty in defence of the line, Austin obliging with the simple goal to close the gap to 13-6.
With ten minutes to play the reserves started coming on for Palmyra to inject life into their fading chances, nervous errors affecting their normally polished back line.
At the 34th minute Cloete attempted a long range penalty after a scrum offence but bounced the ball off the post. Palmyra kicked clear in defence but found Mitchell by the line and he ran back. With quick, accurate handling Cottesloe attacked the corner and passed back inside, flanker Richard Brown bursting over the line to destroy Palmyra’s last hopes.
Cloete converted with minutes on the clock but Cottesloe weren't done. They attacked relentlessly, and the ball swept the width of the field for Parker to touch down in the same corner. Again Cloete slotted the sideline conversion for an astonishing 27-6 lead and although Palmyra battled bravely in the final moments the Cottesloe supporters were already in full chorus of “we’re blue because we’re blue”.
Captain Ryan Westaway booted the ball out on the full when time was up and the Cottesloe celebrations began.
by Rick Boyd
http://rugbywa.com.au/news/article,56421.html
The reason why we should have first past the post premiership and a cup at the end of the year!
Heads up Palmy!
I completely agree with this. Finals are a league invention to finish the season with a climax, maximise marketing opportunities and rake in a whole heap of extra cash through sold out games at the end of the season. Which is probably what professional sport is all about.
The best team is the team that has won games all year, not the team that can put together a flash in the pan in the finals. English premier league soccer doesn't have finals and neither should rugby. They reduce the season's success to a flukey couple of games.
I hadn't put it into finals series perspective, but I was talking to Waterboy on the way out and suggested that Cottesloe had better match fitness than Palmyra going into this match....
Dear Lord, if you give us back Johnny Cash, we'll give you Justin Bieber.
The best team is the team that has won games all year, not the team that can put together a flash in the pan in the finals.
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Flash in the pan after beating Paly twice in the home and away series???
Finals are a real test - physical, mental and tactical
Sorry, but I can't find anything in that statement that detracts from the logic that the top team is the best team. I've heard them all -- "it's a level playing field", "real champions can win when it really counts", blah blah blah.
You can't argue with the mathematics of statistics. The best team is the one that succeeds over the largest sample of instances. Not the team that wins the marketing opportunity.
But this is all academic. We have a competition that concludes with a finals series. End of story.
I wouldn't call Palmyra and Cottesloe finishing the regular season with the same amount of wins a flash in the pan either
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
I'm only secretly a Kiwi to Australians too dumb to see the NZ flag on my profile.
I'm just old-fashioned. Knock out finals have nothing to do with quality. The world cup is a great idea and I was always in favour of it, as a great festival of rugby and a celebration of the game. Unfortunately the media and blow-in fans have made it the be-all and end-all of rugby, and it is now a major blight on the game.
Whether NZ wins it or not does not deeply concern me. I am primarily interested in test series. For instance, this year South Africa won the test series and can rightly be called world champions -- because they beat the number 2 and 3 teams in series, not because they beat England and Argentina in a knockout tournament.
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So the premiership should be a draw?
Careful Rick, you'll start blowing holes in your own argument if you follow that line too much further.
For mine, it doesn't matter a toss whether a competition has a final series or not. the winner at the end of the day is the team that fit the structure best. To compete in the competition and then complain about the structure of the competition is ludicrous, and I don't think many Paly players will be whingeing about HAVING a grand final (although some will be pissed about losing it) I think, If there is any outcry from Paly, it'll be about the Force players parachuted in from East to help Cott get over the line. Reading the write up it doesn't sound like they had much effect on the game, but in a limited amount of space, their contribution may have gone unnoticed.
I don't particularly care whether there's a finals or not. Different structures will honour different things. A finals series is good at finding the team that's best in a 'clutch' game, when everything's on the line. I guess that's why Kiwis don't like them!
C'mon the![]()
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My bad. Colour blind. Good in theory Rick but to take the Super 14 for example- you don't get to play each team home and away. So it can't really be judged in that way. Sure you could expand it in that sense rather than conferences and finals series but would that really be better? A season would be a bit boring if by three quarters of the way through it one team had already won. And looking at the English Premier League the same four or five teams win the competition every year without fail. At least with a finals series the lower teams have an outside chance of getting in there.
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
way back in the dark ages,when I played in the Wellington competition,there were three divisions.The winner of each division was decided by the first past the post principle.However it also included a promotion/relegation series.From memory the bottom two teams from first Div & the top two from second div,played a round robin comp,with the top two teams going into div one the following season.The same went for div two/three promotion relegation.
these games were the hardest,most brutal games in which i ever played.Eveything was at stake;a war of attrition.Our club always seemed to be involved in this,some years we would go up,& others we would go down.
certainly made an interesting end to a season!
Any info on crowd size?
Dear Lord, if you give us back Johnny Cash, we'll give you Justin Bieber.
Congrats to Cottesloe.
While not many people wanted them to or thought they deserved to win, they did and they played a better game on the day.