Waratahs back up big win despite Jayden Stanton's red card

Aggies claimed their first win over their Wagga rivals in seven years earlier in the season, but Waratahs were able to dominate for lengthy periods at Conolly Rugby Complex on Saturday.

While Hamish Spackman opened the scoring for Ag College, Waratahs coach Jonno Andreou thought it really kicked his team into gear as they backed up a drought-breaking performance to take a 38-7 win.

"It was a massive second half," Andreou said.

"We played about 20 minutes with 14 men but still scored two tries so that's a pretty big effort.

"The penalty count was against us in the first half, so we obviously have to fix our discipline, but our set piece worked really well.

"Ag College played really well in the first 20 minutes, their defence was good, they disrupted our set piece but it seemed to take that try to get our boys moving. After that try they really switched on."

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After becoming the first team to get the better of Wagga City since 2019 last week, Waratahs were soon able to get things rolling against Ag College.

Rob Selosse scored to hand them a 14-7 lead at half-time before they raced away with things in the second stanza.

Andreou was particularly pleased with the team's discipline in the second half as their forwards did plenty of damage.

Kula Kalouduna crossed for a double in the second half while Emilio De Fanti and David Capp also found their way over the line.

Henry Chamberlain and Harry Hosegood were among the best for Waratahs but the club will have a nervous wait after inside centre Jayden Stanton was red carded for a high shot on opposite number Ethan Brien.

Stanton will head straight to the judiciary this week.

The Waratahs first grade outfit has two weeks off but the club still has second grade games against Hay and Leeton before taking on CSU in the final round of the season.

Coming off the big win against Wagga City, and backing it up against Ag College, Andreou hopes the break doesn't stop too much of their momentum.

"Momentum is good but we have two byes now so we'll have to figure out how to keep the group together," he said. "We've got some off-field momentum building as well, which is more or just as important as the on-field momentum, so we'll train for those six sessions leading into CSU in the last round."

Meanwhile the loss has Ag College well and truly in a battle for their finals future.

They are still four points clear of Tumut, and seven ahead of Albury, with games against now third-placed Griffith and the Steamers to come.

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