KILDARE Catholic College have booked their place in next month's Hardy Shield final after they easily accounted for a heavily-undermanned The Riverina Anglican College at Paramore Park on Monday.
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After comfortably winning their previous round matches, Kildare's 20-man squad was always going to be too strong for an 11-man TRAC outfit, who battled hard in the heat in a 42-0 loss.
Kildare set the tone early when centre Matt Murphy scored the first of his tries in the opening stages, before winger Riley Watson and hooker Will McDermott followed suit soon after.
With his side up 24-0 at halftime, Jed Beavan scored twice in the second half before Watson and Murphy's second tries of the game put the icing on the cake.
Kildare will find out after Wednesday's final round of pool games who they will face in the April 4 final.
Kildare coach Matt Ward said he was keen for his team to maintain their structure of play, despite having a two-man overlap throughout, in order to prepare for the decider.
"I told them to use it as a training run for the final because obviously it was tough on them (TRAC)," he said.
"We're just trying to keep them level headed at this stage. We got through the rounds pretty easy, but we've been in this position before. We want to keep their heads on and get them ready for the final in a couple of weeks."
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Ward said they would hold a tough training session or two to harden the squad for the final after cruising through their pool games.
"It is a bit of a worry we've had four easy games. We'll look to get some training in and some more contact," he said.
"We've got a fairly big squad so we should be able to toughen them up for what should be a hard final.
"We changed our halves around a bit today, and tried to play to our edges and shift. When we did that we scored quite easily, but we did let ourselves down with some silly mistakes as well."
In Monday's other clash Kooringal kept their hopes of a hat-trick of titles alive by disposing of Wagga High 36-16.
Kooringal looked set for an easy night when early tries to Seb Rodet and Heydon Hinch gave them an early 12-0 lead.
But two straight tries to Wagga High hooker and skipper Angus Clark, including a 40 metre solo effort, levelled the scores.
However, Kooringal tries to Jacob Wood and Tyler Byrne gave them a 20-12 halftime lead, and they went on with the job after the break.
KILDARE 42 (Matt Murphy 2, Jed Beavan 2, Riley Watson 2, Lachie Field, Will McDermott tries; Watson 5 goals) def TRAC 0; KOORINGAL HIGH 36 (Seb Rodet, Heydon Hinch, Jacob Wood, Tyler Byrne, Malakai Sua, Caden Byrne, Isaac Douglas tries; Rodet 4 goals) def WAGGA HIGH 16 (Angus Clark 2, Hamish McPherson tries; Clark 2 goals)
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