By Henry Jacobs

Northern Suburbs held out Randwick to claim a 16-15 victory in its round 10 Shute Shield match at North Sydney Oval on Saturday.

On the back of three consecutive defeats, Simon Cron’s side was finally on the right end of a close result after surviving a late Galloping Greens onslaught.

“We’ve had four losses and three of them have been by one or two points, so its been pretty horrific in terms of coaching stress,” Cron said.

“We’ve been working a lot on the mentality of players in those close games . . . so that definitely had an impact today.”

Two missed penalties and a blundered try in the first half were ultimately the difference in a tightly contested match, but Randwick coach Shannon Fraser was unhappy with the overall performance of his side.

“There was a point in the game where we should have taken it . . . we showed a lot of ticker but credit to Norths they held well and were confident to the end, which is something we should have taken away from them earlier,” Fraser said.

“There’s a number of components in that game that we didn’t perform to our best and those collectively resulted in a loss.”

Randwick dominated possession and set-piece in the early stages but couldn’t capitalise on the scoreboard.

Winger Chris Taripo missed two early shots at goal, whilst a near certain overlap try on the left flank went begging for the visiting side as the pass went into touch.

Norths finally opened the scoring in the 37th minute through a penalty goal to flyhalf Josh Kay.

It wasn’t long before Norths added to its tally as winger Richard Woolf found himself in space out wide to score in the corner. Kay added the conversion to give the home side a 10-0 lead at halftime.

Randwick finally opened its account early in the second half through a Taripo penalty, but Kay kicked two more goals to give Norths  a 16-3 lead with 20 minutes remaining.

Randwick finally found the form that guided it to victory over Southern Districts last week, when flanker Jack Johnson scored under the posts after sustained pressure on the line; Taripo converted and the visitor trailed 16-10 with 15 minutes left.

Norths flanker Ben Matwijow handed the Galloping Greens an opportunity to snatch victory after receiving a yellow card in deep in his own half.

Randwick kicked to the corner and flanker Sam Figg drove over from the subsequent phases, to put the visitor in touching distance of the lead.

Taripo was unable to convert from the sideline and Norths led by a solitary point with 6 minutes remaining.

The Galloping Greens ferociously attacked the line deep into injury time but couldn’t find a winning try or penalty as the home side held on to get its season back on track.

Randwick will be unhappy after it missed an opportunity to move into the top four, following a Warringah defeat to Sydney University.

“You win some you lose some, we were pretty disappointed by that but we’ll go back to the drawing board,” Fraser said.

“We need to be able to put a consistent performance together to get a result.”

Randwick welcomes a Gordon side, with three consecutive wins under its belt, to Coogee next Saturday.

Norths host table topper Eastwood, fresh from a high scoring last minute victory over Southern Districts.

“They [Eastwood] are a good side, they’re well coached, well drilled and they’ve been together for a number of years,” Cron said.

“When you’ve had a team together for years it helps with your combinations and that’s probably still evolving for us.”

Sixth placed Norths is three points behind fourth and fifth placed Warringah and Randwick respectively, a win next week will see it stay in finals contention as the season enters it second half.