IT TOOK Ag College a month to score its first win but an impressive 48-19 win over Wagga City was enough to secure a place in the premier division on Saturday.
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Ag College came into the game needing a win to secure its place and things looked bad early for the university club.
After scoring first, Aggies found themselves down 12-5 but they were able to control things late in the game.
Booking its place in the top six was a relief for first-year coach Nick McCarthy.
“The weight lifted quite early in the second half,” McCarthy said.
“The game wasn’t won then but at that point in time with the way we were playing I just thought we would roll over them.”
Leading 17-12 at half-time, Aggies turned it on in the second half as they outscored their Wagga rivals by five tries to one.
McCarthy thought changing his team’s style at the breakdown allowed them to get on top.
The Boiled Lollies had the better of them early as Ag College gave away a number of penalties but were able to sustain more pressure after the change.
“As the match wore on our fitness really took over and we made better decisions in attack this week,” McCarthy said.
“We were able to build our phase play as we needed to to put them under pressure and when we had our chances we capitalised and crossed the chalk eight times.”
With the scrum and line out strong against Wagga City, McCarthy rated the performance as his front row’s best yet, Ag College now need to step up to the challenge of the top division.
The only other top six contender they’ve defeated this season is Waratahs but McCarthy is looking to start fresh in the second phase of the season.
“Goal one is past us and it was also going to be a challenge for us when we dropped the first two games of the season then dropped that game against CSU as well,” he said.
“It was also going to be difficult but we’ve achieved our first goal of the year and essentially a new competition starts now and we will jossle for spots to have a dip at it when the third comp starts at finals.”
Chris Leaper and Tanian Naude worked hard to stop Wagga City’s attack while Jeremy Lim continues to grow in confidence at halfback.
Coming in to replace Sam Hobbs while he holidays in Europe, Lim has improved in each of his games for the club and is adapting to the style McCarthy wants to play.
Full-time
AG COLLEGE 48 (B Leaper 2, T Naude, J Lim, T Dunstan, J Pennington, B Hart, R Brennan tries; H Pennington 4 cons) d WAGGA CITY 19
