by Paul Cook –

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Randwick 50 (Tristan Goodbody, Sam Croke, Ned Hanigan,
Jack Pennington, Jock Armstrong, Andrew Deegan, Tom Coupland tries; Andrew Deegan 6 cons, pen) defeated Gordon 14 (Jack Maguire, Henry Carmichael tries; Tom Carruthers 2 cons)
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Having started the season with a win over Penrith, Gordon headed to Coogee Oval confident of pushing a Randwick side who had struggled over the line against Parramatta the previous weekend, all the way. However, things didn’t quite go according to plan (read the full match report here). Rugby News got the reaction from both camps at the final whistle…

Randwick head coach Shannon Fraser:

“It is relative because the oppositions were very different, but we are pretty happy and pretty comfortable with the step that we took from our performance last week and the scoreboard reflects that. Our execution was a lot better and our conversion rate was a lot better, but we still left a lot of points out there and there were a lot of opportunities where we were a little bit impatient and we didn’t really adjust as well as we could have to the pressure we were getting at the ruck. We were a bit vulnerable there and we got turned over a little bit on our own ball so we’ve go back and look at that and make sure it’s an area that we don’t get exposed in again.

“They were trying to put a lot of pressure on our 10, that was evident early on and there was just a timing issue for their fella that got the yellow card but you make the most of those opportunities and try to put the foot down a little bit when there’s one less man on the field. The message at half-time was about getting our structure back and being a bit more clinical at the breakdown, which I think we did, although we were still a bit hot and cold. But I guess the comfort of having those points in the bag at half-time allows you to use your bench earlier and rotate some guys, and over a season, that experience off the bench will come to the forefront.

“I thought Andrew Deegan was outstanding today but in saying that, he had some pretty good support around him and I was pretty happy with our entire backrow to be fair. We’re building, we’ve come across two quality oppositions who were very different in their nature and different in the way they’ve played, and for us to come away with two bonus point wins in the first two rounds is a pretty good platform for us to build on. We’re going to get tested next week with Uni, we know that, and the following three weeks sees us play Penrith, Manly and Eastwood so the next four weeks is going to be difficult. We needed to learn a few things from these first two games ahead of that next block, and I think we have.”

Andrew Deegan racked up a 20pt personal haul for the Wicks – Photo: Ric McLallen

Gordon head coach Geoff Townsend:

“It’s very disappointing. With our expectations being a little bit higher this year, that’s probably the worst performance since I’ve been at the club. We’ve probably had performances where we totally weren’t in the game but the expectations are a little bit higher with the group we have now. Maybe we’re not being realistic with those expectations, I don’t know, but we can be a lot better than that. In key positions at the moment, we’re not getting input and I think it’s the first time since I’ve been involved that our forwards really didn’t dig in and have a crack. I’m not saying they went missing but they’re normally a lot more efficient than what they showed out there today.

“It was three-nil and we had a man in the bin, and two or three minutes after that we had a penalty on halfway and a smart team would have kicked the ball into touch. But one of our players decided to take a quick tap, got himself isolated and turned it over and they went 60 metres and scored. There’s 10pts right there, and they scored three other tries from turnovers so, it was a very naïve way we played today.

“We’ve added a few things to the way we play this year but you wouldn’t know it from that performance, we didn’t stick to what our plan was and that showed in the half-time score and the final result. We were able to play a little bit of footy in the end but the opposition may well have relaxed too as they were 30pts up. We had a good chat when we went back in the sheds. We don’t slit our throats, we’ve got to keep turning up and doing our best but we may have to try and look at ways of adding depth to our squad at the moment because we’re a bit light on in some areas. We just have to wipe the slate clean and go back and get things right.”

Skipper Harry Rorke (left) did his best to drive his side forward on a tough day for the Highlanders – Photo: Ric McLallen

Randwick captain Mark Baldwin:

“We didn’t expect that result and I don’t think the scoreline reflects how physical Gordon were out there but obviously, I’m very pleased to get it. I thought our A-zone attack was really spot on, it wasn’t often that we went down there and didn’t come away with points, so that was impressive. We need to go forward before we can go wide and use the footy and I thought Gordon were very strong at the breakdown and prevented us from going wide a lot, so it’s an area we need to work on a bit more.

“It is a hard team talk at the break when you’re that far ahead and often teams become complacent. But we were really pleased with our first half and it was just a case of trying to keep the scoreline pressure on, starting the second half as if it was nil-all and carrying on with what we were doing well. We didn’t exactly do that, we made a bit of a slow start to the second half but we came home strong at the end. We had back-to-back yellow cards either side of the break, which made things harder, but I was really impressed with how the boys kept working for each other during that period.

“They had us on our heels for a lot of that second half and we were concerned while we had the two guys in the bin that they could put some quick points on us and start a comeback. We did coast for a bit, got a bit lazy and a bit complacent and I had to get up the boys but they stepped up again, which was pleasing. We just needed to regroup and stick it to them. We weren’t at all happy with last week’s performance, today was much better but Uni next week is a bigger challenge again, so we need to improve.”