CSU delighted with draw as Waratahs, Ag College and Wagga City claim wins

The Reddies were disappointing in their season-opener against Ag College last weekend, failing to score a point as they went down 33-0.

However, just seven days they managed to turn their fortunes around and share the points with the Phantoms who last week took down reigning premiers Waratahs.

Quite often teams can feel quite flat after a draw, however that wasn't the case for Reddies coach Mick Wakeling who was thrilled with their performance.

"Last week we were a bit flat at the start against Aggies," Wakeling said.

"But today we started with a lot more intensity and it was a classic arm-wrestle, because they want to play the sevens style rugby.

"While we talked before the game about keeping things tight and keeping the ball off them as much as we could.

"Obviously it didn't work the whole time because they scored a few tries as well, but at one stage we were two tries down and came back then got even.

"Then they skipped out again and we came back, it was a very entertaining game."

The Reddies and Phantoms traded momentum all day which eventually saw the two sides square-up at 27-all as the game entered it's final stages.

CSU were the first to kick a penalty which handed them the lead, however a knock on from the subsequent kickoff then ended up resulting in the Phantoms also converting a penalty to tie the two sides at 30-30 at fulltime.

After failing to score a single point last weekend against Ag College, Wakeling said he was very proud of how the Reddies responded against the Phantoms.

"I said to the boys at the start of the game, the big thing from last week is I could see the disappointment on their faces," he said.

"Today was much closer to playing the sort of footy that we want to for the full 80 minutes."

Leeton made a huge statement last weekend in their 32-20 win over the reigning premiers and Wakeling believed his side could definitely take some confidence after matching it with a quality outfit for 80 minutes.

"Absolutely," he said.

"We talked about that before this game, we said these guys are obviously a pretty good side.

"You don't knock off Waratahs unless you've got a pretty good team, so we were mindful of what they might bring.

"They played the style that we expected them to, but I think we had a pretty good plan to counter that.

"We were very close to pulling that off, very close."

Wakeling believed it was a fantastic team performance that led to their great result today and he credited the efforts of some of their forwards.

"Our points today went to four guys in the forwards," he said.

"I thought our forwards were great and that was our plan to play it tight and keep punching it up the middle and our forwards did that very well.

"One point was shared by Connor Whitnall and Isaac Erbacher, then our little breakaway from England Ollie Breeze and James Newell were the guys who got our points today.

"They were all in the forwards and they all did a very good job, they just stuck to the plan and kept punching up."

Ag College continued their strong start to the season with a narrow 26-23 win on the road against Tumut while Wagga City were also victors on the road after defeating Griffith 67-24.

Waratahs also bounced back after going down last weekend as they claimed a 55-5 win over Albury.

Full Time

CSU 30 drew with Leeton 30

Ag College 26 d Tumut 23

Wagga City 67 d Griffith 24

Waratahs 55 d Albury 5