The Condobolin Rams scored in the first two minutes of the game to lead 6-0 and held that lead with some brutal defence for 18 minutes into the half when they gave away a series of penalties and Jeff Brown made them pay while Dylan Arabin converted for 6 all. 

The Rams continued to incur penalties, which allowed Binalong into the red zone. They then made a mistake off a Dylan Arabin kick and Jeff Brown pounced again after the referee reversed a decision on a knock on.

With a 10-6 lead going into the second half, Binalong looked the better side and Will Manwaring tore the opposition to shreds. Dylan Arabin is now a marked man in this competition and opposition coaches send a number of players to keep him under control. This is a basic mistake in tactics because it allows players like Will Manwaring, Jeffrey Brown, Marty Smith, Josh Barker and Dylan Downie to make metres as they please.

Dylan Downie scored a classic crash-over try ten minutes into the half and Condobolin scored again with 14 minutes remaining. With some very clever soccer skills, Will Manwaring got Binalong home with the 20-12 full time score and the Calves retained the top spot on the ladder.

The League Tag match opened with the Jersey Girls having first use of the ball from the kick-off and it took just 44 seconds for Tara McGrath-West to comprehensively split the Peak Hill defence wide open and score under the sticks. Kayla and Tioni Smith both made driving runs, which kept pressure on the home side. Nevertheless, there was a bit of lost possession by the girls, which gave the impression Peak Hill was still in the game. Kayla Smith scored with two minutes remaining in the half and that was largely the end of any chance the Roosterettes had.

Starved of possession, the home side had to endure 24 points being put on them in 25 minutes by the Jersey Girls. Tioni Smith was in first followed by Mel Ings off a very clever grubber from Kayla Smith. With 10 minutes to go, Tara McGrath-West was in again and with five minutes left, Em Banks crossed the chalk and Tara McGrath-West completed her hat trick in the final minutes of the game with the visitors up 36-0.

Following some positional changes, the first grade Waldren Constructions Brahmans side took the field in their new 2016 playing strip. Drew Arabin moved out of the forwards to the number 6 jersey with David Ings now in the second row. Rod Freeman was listed as fullback but played in the centres with David Cribb at fullback. These were changes that should have had an impact but didn’t.

The Peak Hill Roosters scored in the opening two minutes of the game for a 6-0 score line. They repeated this 10 minutes in and it was all happening again at 10-0. Even so, the Brahmans were good in defence in patches, defending in twos and threes and looked the part in the very difficult conditions on the field.

As the first quarter of the game slipped away, Binalong could not get any reasonable field position not to speak of possession. The Roosters scored again at the 18th minute for 16-0. Mick Spencer and Andrew Stadtmiller toiled away up the centre but the bigger Peak Hill forwards resisted everything the pair could dish out. There was little or no second phase play by the visitors until the second half.

Peak Hill continued to make good metres and scored after 25 minutes to make the 22-0 score and with only 9 minutes in the half remaining, a Brahmans attacking raid to the right defence found Lane Gaudie, promoted from the juniors, to score in the left corner. The combination of Drew Arabin in the pivot position with his brother Danny at prop worked well when they ran off each other, but attempts to keep the Roosters out broke down. Nevertheless, a good attacking raid resulted in Drew Arabin crossing wide out.

Typical of the Brahman’s day, with 90 seconds left on the clock in the first half, a well constructed attack to the right saw a Roosters defender rush up out of the line and slip over, the outside defender moved in to cover him. This left Binalong with a two-on-one attack and Luke Cotter only had to take the pass and fall over to score; the pass went to ground a metre in front of Cotter and then went into touch.

The second half barely warrants a mention, down 22-10 at halftime, the game finished up with Dylan Arabin scoring a neat try off a Hayden Bee kick for the final score of 46-16. David Ings and Max Giles were good all day; Hayden Bee’s kicking game was fair but didn’t bring many rewards.

In other results, Trundle defeated Manildra 18-10, Grenfell prevailed over Canowindra 28-16, Eugowra belted Burrangong 40-0 and the closest match was a scare put into Cargo with a narrow 32-30 victory over Condobolin.

Peak Hill 46 def Binalong 16. [L.Gaudie, Drew Arabin and Dylan Arabin, H.Bee 2 goals] Referee: L. Brown

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