The Glen Willow Sports Stadium Mudgee, hosted the annual NSW Police City V Country game. Home of legendary TV sports presenter and commentator Ken Sutcliffe, who generously presented the team jumpers to both teams the night before the match.
The game itself was a pearler. City skipped away to a 20 to a nil lead after notching two tries by Jack Webster, a debutant in the centres for City, and set another up for Simon Gairns who also scored two tries in the first half. City looked slick with the ball, but had a glut of possession. Once Country had some ball, they also looked slick and another debutant Dane Clarke, notched his first try for Country after a clever pass from the experienced Daniel Drewe. City went to the sheds leading 24 points to 4.
The second half was Country’s turn to shine, and shine they did. Led by the experience of Daniel Drewe, clever five-eight Adam McInnes and and their powerful forwards, Country started to claw back points with tries from Shaun Cresswell and James Gartside, before Webster scored his hat trick of tries. Country refused to fold and inspirational captain Danny Lawrence through a nice park to put crowd favourite Rebel Price over for a 4 pointer.
Time was ticking away, but Country had fought back to trail City by only two points when Adam McInnes forced his way over and the conversion was successful. The score was 28 – 26 with about one minute remaining. As the full-time siren sounded, country were 60 metres from the City try line. McInnes threw a nice pass on the right hand side to Shaun Cresswell who put James Gray into space. Gray drew his opposite to Daniel Drewe who was racing down near the right touchline as he dummied, drew in two defenders and found veteran Tony Ledbetter inside who looked set to score. However, another City debutant Haydn Peacock, flew from the skies to cut Ledbetter down inches from the City tryline. What a finish……………..
City Captain Alex Sayhoun holds the Rob McDonald Alex Ramsay Shield with City coach, Simon Telfer.
Congratulations to City for their great win and also to Country for their great contest.
Both teams after the game, great effort to you all. Credit also to Simon Telfer, coach of the City Police team and Jye Sommers, coach of the Country Police team, and all the other officials, the teams presented magnificently.
