An injury to Wagga City fullback James Curgenven provided a massive momentum shift on Saturday.
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Curgenven was injured after Andy Stanham scored to get Ag College within three points midway through the second half at Beres Ellwood Oval.
But from there, Wagga City were able to take control.
They scored soon off the restart of play, spreading the ball the width of the field before Keifer Power scored and off the next restart struck again with another long range effort finished off by Rory Sheard.
Gordon Lagaali then had too much pace on the wing to seal the 39-19 victory.
Coach Michael Kanck thought his team did well to dampen the spirit shown by Ag College, come away with the win and maintain third position.
“We need to look after our ball a lot better coming into finals, and full credit to Ag College they capitialised on soon of our sloppy play,” Kanck said. “But once we started got possession of the ball and starting working our set piece things started to come in our favour.”
Two tries from an absolutely dominant scrum for Monson Tuvale plus another to Sheard gave Wagga City a 17-12 lead at half-time.
Vili Cavuca added to it minutes after the break after he scored off his own kick before Ag College took the score to 22-19 when Stanham scored.
Kanck is hopeful Curgenven’s shoulder issue isn’t too serious with a clash with third spot on the line against Tumut on Saturday.
However the Boiled Lollies will be without Sheard after the flanker picked up his three yellow card on the season in the win.
In the end the scoreline didn’t do justice to Ag College’s effort.
With the season on the line, they started off well when Sam Webster burst through the middle and put Duncan Woods over after two minutes, but didn’t have the polish to take advantage of their field position.
Despite having more of the possession, Aggies couldn’t find the last pass to make their rivals pay.
Coach Will Mitchell was still pleased by the effort.
“I’m not upset with the want, I’m not upset with the ticker but there was two or three moments in that game when we had to complete and we didn’t,” Mitchell said.
“It’s a sign of not playing much together or not training enough together.
“We competed in every part of it apart from the scrum and I thought we were fitter than them, we retained the ball better than them but we just didn’t pull the trigger at the right time.”
Without a bonus point in the loss, Ag College now need to win their last two games, against CSU and Tumut, plus have results go their way.