Main Menu
Sub Main Menu
sunshine coast
national
6:24PM Friday 29 August, 2008 Sunshine Coast weather Possible shower min 12° - max 22°

Noosa earns win

5 August 2008

| By Peter Gardiner

It was not the Indy Car horror pile-up of last week, but the first half of rugby on Saturday for the Noosa Dolphins was looking ugly as their Rolls Royce backline appeared in need of an urgent valve grind.

Noosa fans, who showed up in force at Dolphin Oval, were expecting their side to show Caloundra a clean pair of heels. Especially with the side stung by last week’s loss, their first, a 38-12 thumping by University.

The Noosa halves of Sam Forrest and Kyle Beakey were firing the side up but the passes refused to stick. Caloundra withstood the pressure well and despite being in its own half for too long, was the first to get a chance to opening the scoring. This was not until the 22nd minute, but Phil Dawson’s penalty kick went astray from 30 metres out wide on the southern side.

Eventually, winger Luke Aglio ended the agony for the Noosa home crowd by finishing off some sweeping attacking raids that featured the handling of Stingrays hooker Tom Kearney. Nat Forrest knocked over the conversion for a 7-0 lead.

Caloundra’s Dawson potted a penalty goal in reply a few minutes later and then, against the run of the game, fullback Matt McClennan beat some desperate Noosa defence to score his team’s only try. Noosa was left spinning its wheels 8-7 down at halftime.

In the second half Caloundra was firing away nicely with hard-running winger, Ben Tennant, crossing over wide but the referee called the play back for a kick restart to Caloundra.

Noosa’s No.4, Cam McRae, Tennant and centre Steve Rameka started hitting holes in the Caloundra line and this allowed replacement back Dave Harrold to finish off a sweeping backline raid to regain the lead, 12-8.

Eventually, replacement Jason McDowall scored the match-winner for Noosa from a scrum win.

In other results, Fraser Coast upset Maroochydore 23-22, Caboolture defeated Nambour 22-18 and Gympie forfeited to University.

Have your say

We welcome comments on our stories and blogs - after all it's your site. Please note comments should be on-topic and not abusive. Comments are checked before publication.