Strong defensive efforts guides Gundagai to impressive win over Dragons

The Dragons were undefeated heading into the game and had piled on the points in recent weeks scoring a combined 122 points in their first three games of the season.

However the Tigers restricted them to just the single try as they ran out narrow 14-8 winners over the Dragons.

Gundagai co-coach Derek Hay was immensely proud of the effort of his side who improved their record to 2-1 with their win over Temora.

"Yeah it's always a tough place to win Nixon Park," Hay said.

"It's not something you really look forward to, but our defence today was unbelievable.

"They only scored one try and we just kept repelling their attack, that's a huge positive and we didn't make one error in the second half.

"We took our opportunities when they presented themselves, we scored a good long range try and also near the line Jake Hay came up with a couple of smart plays for us.

"But I think what won us the game was our middle, Joel Field played 80 minutes of prop after we loss Luke Berkrey early on.

"Joel was outstanding and Royce Tout, he played 80 too at lock and they were unbelievable for us."

The Tigers lost their prop early in the contest against the Dragons and Hay said they would have to wait and see how Berkrey pulls up after the game.

"I think Berks has got a little bit of a shoulder issue," he said.

"We lost him 10 minutes into the game, but he said he wasn't too bad after the game so I think he'll be right.

"We'll just wait and see and the weather didn't help too as it was freezing cold over there.

"He went off to get it looked at and he was off for 10 minutes and he was cold by then, so we said we'll sit you today.

"He was pretty keen to get back on, but it was good to get the job done without him as he's pretty vital to us."

Tigers five-eighth Will Herring had a strong game for Gundgai and he crossed over for two important tries against the Dragons.

Hay was impressed with Herring's performance and believed he had been a solid addition to the side since returning to Gundagai during the off-season.

"He scored a really good individual try there, he took the line on and went though and then he scored off a Jake Hay kick so he was really good," he said.

"Will's been a really good addition for us this year, he hasn't been at Gundagai for a couple of years now because he lives in Wagga and he played a couple of years at 'Roos which is understandable.

"His footy IQ is very, very good, he knows his footy and he's a good defender too which also helps playing in the halves.

"He was excellent today for us."

The Tigers will now take on ladder leaders Young next weekend and Hay admitted his side still has some things to work on ahead of their clash against the Cherrypickers.

"Our ball control in the first half probably let us down again," he said.

"That was our issue last week as well against Kangaroos, we were in that game but we coughed up the ball too much and they took advantage of that as a good side does.

"So probably just our ball control and you can always get better around the ruck.

"Young is a big physical side, they like to play up the middle and then spread it wide so hopefully we can win that middle battle again next week."

Following the contest against Young, the Tigers will then play host to Junee at home at Anzac Park.

Tout and James Morgan will miss the clash against the Diesels as they will both represent Country in their upcoming game against City on May 18.