Country Cup Southern NSW Finals

Kildare recently participated in the Southern NSW Country Cup Rugby League finals in Wagga Wagga. We had teams participate in all three divisions of 13's, 15's and Opens.

The 13 Years boys played two games. The first game against Red Bend Catholic College where they were beaten in a close game 12 to 10. We then played a very strong Kiama High School team who had beaten Red Bend 26 to 0. The boys competed for the whole game and ended up losing 24 to 16. A great all round team effort by all the boys who showed they will be a very handy team with more time on the training paddock.

The 15 Years boys had a disrupted start to the day with St Stannislaus College having to withdraw that morning due to covid restrictions leaving them with 1 game only against Kiama to be played in longer 25min halves. The next hurdle came when the Kiama bus was late and the game being put back to 12:30 instead of the 11:10 time slot the boys got ready for. Once finally underway Kildare found themselves in an arm wrestle being down 4-0 at the break to kick away by a few tries, only to be put under pressure by a very good Kiama outfit that they couldn't shake. A late converted Kildare try made the final score 26-16 in our favour however the score did not reflect the closeness of the game. 

The Opens team had limited time to train and we were also limited to the number of players that were available to play with year 12's unavailable and other players due to injury/illness but this didn't deter our effort on the day. Our first game was against a very strong Redbend College Forbes side who just got over us 10 points to 6. We then had a long wait for our next game against Kiama High School who had beaten Redbend 6 to 0. We were down two more players who couldn't get through the warm up because of injury which brought us down to 13 fit players. The score at half time was 12 points to 6 and we had the breeze in the second half, but, all to no avail when we conceded an early try and another injury meaning we had to play with 12 so the game was called early with Kiama running out champions. We could not be more proud of the efforts of all the young men involved in the day and the way you stood together through the challenges was a testament to the men you will all become. You have made the Kildare community very proud.

    A big thank you to Mr Siegwalt, Mr Ward and Mr McNamara for all your hard work this season. We look forward to the 15 years team playing in a Country Cup state final at a time to be announced. The team has already achieved so much.

Matthew Conn | Rugby League Coach