By MARK CASHMAN

Randwick coach Ben McCormack praised his club’s heart and will to win in the wake of the Galloping Greens 13-8 win over last season’s grand finalists Warringah on Saturday.

Anyone not wearing myrtle green on Saturday would have had the Rats odds on to win this one by some way, but somehow the home side managed to come up with ‘W’ against all the odds.

They played the last 28 minutes without of the services of their fullback Locky Miller after he was red carded for an illegal tackle but still managed to grind it out keeping the big Warringah scrum at bay.

If we were talking “rugba league” here one could easily lapse and say that the Wicks put their bodies on the line.

“Yeah I was really proud of my group on Saturday, they showed some real character when seemingly everything was going against us,” McCormack said.

“We lost a number of quality second graders during their game which had an effect on our bench so I was hoping a lot of our guys would go 80 (minutes).

“The we lost David Horwitz in the first 10 minutes, lost George Hendry (prop), Kyle Harris (backrower) and Henry Hutchison (winger) just after halftime and lost Locky Miller to a red card as well.

“It’s just a great reflection of the club and the culture we are building. Was a real gutsy team effort.

“Heap of injuries though so it’s not all rainbows and lollipops – we will regroup this week and probably have a very different looking side going up against Western Sydney.”

The leadership from lock Den Hoedt was top notch, Freddy Dorrough who replaced Horwitz after playing the entire seconds match was another myrtle green highlight.

Jake Turnbull in the front row and Dylan Pietsch had great games as well. .

There were other great stories in there too with Dorrough taking over the kicking duties once Horwitz and them Miller were off the field.

His tee got lost somehow on the sidelines so he slotted the pressure penalty goal in the rain straight off the ground.

Marcus Cutler was another playing Fours, Threes and then came off the bench in Ones.

Warringah coach Mike Ruthven said: “It was a really disappointing result for us on the weekend.

“We gave ourselves plenty of chances and opportunities to win the game.

“We weren’t clinical enough in the right areas of the field and were forced into error by a very spirited Randwick defence.

“The upside for us is all our work ons are well within our control.”

Elsewhere Andrew Davies was outstanding and really stepped up physically. Rory Suttor worked hard and Harley Atwater provided some spark when he came on

RANDWICK 13 (Thomas Piroddi try; Locky Miller conversion, pen goal, Fred Dorrough pen goal) d WARRINGAH 8 (Rory Suttor try; Tom Halse pen gaol) at Coogee Oval.

IMAGE: BRETT DOOLEY / RANDWICK RUGBY