Mounties have gone back-to-back in the Ron Massey Cup, after they defeated St Marys 32-16 at Pirtek Stadium.
Captain John Kennedy had a fantastic day out, as did Chad Porter and Brendan Raeli for Mounties, as they blew the game out in the final quarter of the game to claim the premiership.
Mounties wasted no time to get on the scoreboard when Jake Walsh put up a towering bomb, and Jordan Martin batted it into the arms of a runaway Paul Simona, who scored in the right corner.
Nathan Smith used his 128 NRL games of experience to support a fantastic Antonio Pelesasa offload, which is caught with an open runway to the try-line, and the try meant St Marys took a 6-4 lead after 10 minutes.
It was punch-for-punch in the fast-paced game, and Mounties were next to score when John Kennedy put up a pinpoint cross-field kick, and was spectacularly taken by the athletic Jordan Martin, who had plenty of work to do but eventually successfully planted the ball down.
Smith’s experience came in handy again when he took the ball to the line, showed the ball to his right, and burned the defence to cruise through a hole and score his second try of the day.
The scores were locked at 10-all for a long period of time, with neither side being able to crack their opposition’s defence.
That was until Chad Porter slices through for Mounties and scores next to the posts, which gave them a 16-10 lead at half-time.
Porter picked up where he left off at the end of the first half, as just two minutes into the second half, he broke the line once again, and this time he gave it to a supporting Sonny Bristow, who was too fast and too big to stop so close to the line.
The Kennedy and Martin combination was working wonders, and they linked up again for another try soon afterwards. Kennedy drifted right, and threw a brilliant cut-out ball to Martin to finished in the right corner to extend Mounties lead to 26-10.
St Marys needed to be next to score, and that’s exactly what they did when Cameron Collins sold a huge dummy to his left, which fooled the markers and allowed him to dive straight over.
Another stalemate period preceded that try, but Mounties sealed the game when Simona broke through, dummied to Martin, and ran away to put Mounties ahead by more than two converted tries.
The final try of the day came when Allen Mulia Malau grubbered for himself, re-gathered, and extended his arm over the line to plant the ball down, capping of a fantastic Grand Final win for Mounties.
