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Wests Scarborough has continued to keep their season alive following their 32-23 win over Palmyra in the Pindan Premier Grade minor semi-final at Success Sporting Complex this afternoon.
The Doubleview-based club has been riding a knife edge for the past month, knowing that a loss would end their 2013 campaign. However, six consecutive victories – including today’s four-tries-to-two win – has the newly-located club one win away from contesting this year’s grand final.
Despite trailing 13-10 at the break, Wests Scarborough turned on three second half tries and survived a late Palmyra surge to keep their season alive with the nine-point win.
Wests Scarborough coach Dwayne Grace says his side’s do-or-die attitude over the past four matches, held his side in good stead for today’s elimination final.
“We’re starting to put games together and we’ve been playing knock-out rugby for the past few weeks,” he said. “Today it was nice to be able to go out there, relax a bit and just play. We put together some nice phases and put together some nice tries.
“Paly came at us like we knew they would; they were very structured and we needed to try and match them at the set piece, win our own ball and play our own game .”
Palmya coach Dave Ball was sorry to see his side’s seven-match winning streak come to an end in the first week of the finals.
“Once you get to the finals you want to win it and anything else is disappointing,” he said. “I spoke to the guys after the game; they’re pretty disappointed but they were happy with the way they prepared and they were happy with how they played, we were just beaten by a stronger team on the day,” he said.
Wests Scarborough wasted no time in setting the match alight, when fullback Jayden Hayward fended off a would-be tackler to touch down in the left-hand corner in the first minute of the match.
Teava TeRangi’s sideline conversion gave his side a 7-0 lead, while Palmyra’s early scoring was left to the boot of flyhalf Jarrod Trevanthan, who piloted home two penalties in the first 20 minutes of the match – the second stemming from a dangerous tackle by Pierre Roberts that earned the Wests Scarborough No.8 a yellow card.
Not to be outdone, TeRangi slotted a 50-metre penalty goal at the 28-minute mark to re-establish a four-point margin in a ‘no quarter asked, no quarter given’ affair.
With half-time nearing, the Wests Scarborough defence allowed a towering Palmyra bomb to bounce, with the riverside club regathering the ball to mount one final attacking raid for the term. An attacking scrum inside the Wests Scarborough quarter saw Palmyra inside centre Samuel Jurisich slide through two tackles and reach out to score under the posts to give his side a 13-10 half-time lead.
The opening 20 minutes of the second half were dominated by Wests Scarborough, with the fourth-placed side running in three tries – the first when replacement lock Sam Wykes bumped off two defenders to put outside centre Brad Lacey on a 30-metre run to the try line, before lock Josh Beer and winger Brendan Anderson also crossed to break the game open for a 29-13 lead.
With their season slipping away, Palmyra clicked into gear and peppered the attacking goal line which resulted in a yellow card to Wests Scarborough scrumhalf and captain Michael Marshal. The ensuing passage netted Palmyra the desired result when an elusive Va’a Malei stepped through two tackles before popping a neat flick pass to fullback Ray Maloney to fall over the line to score.
Trevanthan’s conversion and penalty goal with 10 minutes remaining put his side to within reach at 29-23.
While Palmyra repelled several Wests Scarborough attempts to close out the match, a penalty conceded on full-time put the match beyond reach with TeRangi obliging from the kicking tee for the 32-23 result.
A victorious Grace said having won their first finals match since 2006, his side would now focus on tackling the minor premiers, Cottesloe, in next Saturday’s Preliminary Final at Kingsway Sporting Complex.
“It will be another physical encounter,” he said. “We’ve got some sore boys out there today but we played Cottesloe two weeks ago, they’re physical and fit, and we’ll be focusing on doing our things right.”
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