2013 JR Henderson Cup Winners: Sydney University – Photo: seiserphotography.com

by Paul Cook –

Sydney University struck the first blow on an historic Grand Final day with a 31-10 victory over Eastwood in the 4th Grade decider. With only two teams providing the finalists in all four grades for the first time ever, the Students never really looked like failing to strike the first blow in a dominant performance against the side that finished behind them in second on the regular season ladder.

Uni were simply too big and too strong early on, muscling up around the fringes and controlling the set-piece, their line out in particular proving a lethal weapon from which to strike as they crossed three times, twice from powerful line out drives and once from a five metre scrum. Flanker Michael Pollastri (twice) and lock Charles Boyce were the scorers.

Eastwood winger Paul Cividin grabs the Woodies’ first five pointer – Photo: seiserphotography.com

With former 1st grader David Fong pulling the strings at scrumhalf as he makes his way back from injury, the Woodies were on the backfoot for most of the first half and struggled to make any headway.

19-0 behind at the break, you worried for their second half fortunes and when centre James Swan crossed in the corner after Uni had forced a turnover, it looked like getting ugly but credit to the Woodies who decided to at least go down fighting.

A yellow card to the Students only aided Eastwood’s cause and when winger Paul Cividin went over after a sweeping backline move to get them on the board and fullback Ben Coady crossed shortly after to make it 24-10, there were a few nervous glances exchanged amongst the Uni faithful.

However, their fears were quelled when the Woodies switched off in defence with a couple of minutes remaining, allowing replacement Duncan Boyd-Jones to go over near the posts and give the Students first blood.

Sydney University 31 (Michael Pollastri 2, Charles Boyce, James Swan, Duncan Boyd-Jones tries; David Fong 2 cons, Cameron Mason con) d Eastwood 10 (Paul Cividin, Ben Coady tries)

*******

Post Match Quotes:

James Cameron – Sydney University head coach:

“It’s been a very good season and this is the culmination of a lot of hard work from one through to fifteen and all the guys in the wider squad that have played a part all season. Winning was the goal for us right from the start, fourth grade have fallen just short in the last couple of seasons so it was a bit of a hurdle for us just to get to the Grand Final and to actually win it as well is very pleasing.

Uni captain Scott Cameron holds aloft the JR Henderson Cup – Photo: seiserphotography.com

“I’d have to say that the score line is probably not reflective of how close the game really was and certainly, my heart was in my mouth for a fair chunk of that second half but that’s Grand Final footy isn’t it? We can’t expect to come out against the second placed team on the ladder and just get away with it so they were always going to come back at us. Fortunately, the game was just short enough for us to hold on. Another try for them at 24-10 would have made life very interesting but we did just enough in the periods where we were on top in the game to come away with it.”

Lachie Parker – Eastwood captain

“I thought the boys put in a really good effort but Uni were just too good on the day. Their forwards dominated and we just gave away too many penalties. Their mauling was good, they got two tries early and that put us on the back foot but we showed some patience and improved discipline to get back into the game and it just wasn’t enough. Two years ago we weren’t doing so well but we’ve got a good set-up now and just being here is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, we’ll go one better next year.”

Scott Cameron – Sydney University captain:

“We’ve been performing well all year but we knew it was going to be tough come finals time. Our starts have probably been a bit poor the last few weeks, we thought we’d have it over them in the last 20 minutes but it was really the start where we wanted to come out hard and the first set of phases we had was really positive and we just built from that.

“We spoke about dominating in the forwards, we think we’ve got the backs who can convert points but we really wanted to get some forward domination and we felt after only a couple of minutes that we did have some dominance there and we tried to make the most of it near the line. We had a man go off to the bin in the second half and they scored a couple of tries and the tide was turning their way. We started to fall off a couple of tackles as well which was more worrying I guess but we did well to hold on and come back with a try at the end but we were definitely worried for a few minutes there.”