Bryson Luff
The first weekend of the 2025 Christie and Hood Castlereagh League finals saw some great on field action take place at Narromine on Saturday and Gulgong on Sunday.
Narromine’s Cale Oval was the venue for Saturday’s Qualifying Semi-finals with the opening reserve grade game between Baradine Magpies and Binnaway Bombshells setting the tone for the weekend. In an entertaining game, the Maggies scraped home 12-10 after the Bombshells took an early lead.
Following that the Dunedoo Swannettes and Narromine Jets engaged in a high standard and closely fought game of League Tag. The Swannettes eventually powered away to record an impressive 24-8 victory after Dunedoo led 12-8 at half-time.
As much as the Narromine Jets ran out deserved first grade winners over Coonabarabran Unicorns, they benefited from errors made by the blue and golds throughout the match.
For the opening quarter of the game, the Unicorns barely made it over halfway due to their lack of possession and after 17 minutes the Jets had racked up 18 unanswered points.
The Unicorns did manage a converted try not long after to make it 18-6 and looked a chance to score again a short time late but the final pass of an otherwise impressive backline raid went astray and the chance to reduce the margin was lost.
The visitors’ woes continued when they lost a player to the sin bin for holding down in a tackle with four minutes remaining in the first half. The Jets immediately took advantage of playing against a team one man down and at half-time they led 24-6.
To their credit the Unicorns came out and “won” the second half 16-10 but the scoreboard damage from the first half was too much to overcome.
They now walk the sudden death tightrope beginning next Saturday when they will host the Gulgong Bull Terriers in the Minor Semi-final.
The Bull Terriers had to fight hard against the Coonamble Bears in the Elimination Final played at Gulgong on Sunday.
In a game that went from one end to the other, the lead changed twice in the first half before it was locked up at 16 all at half-time.
The lead changed twice in the second stanza before the Gulgong side got their nose in front with just 12 minutes remaining and then went on to score two converted tries to seal a 32-22 sin.
The earlier games at Gulgong saw Coonamble get over the top of Coonabarabran in reserve grade 42-24, while Baradine beat Cobar 30-10 in League Tag.
Sunday’s Major Semi-finals at Coolah will feature two undefeated teams in the Castlereagh League competitions this season - the Coolah Flyers in League Tag and Coolah Kangaroos in first grade.
The big carrot for the winner of the first-grade clash between the ‘Roos and the Narromine Jets is the right to host the 2025 Christie and Hood Castlereagh League Grand Finals.
The first game at both the minor and major Semi-final venues will kick off at 11.30am with the other grades to follow straight on.
Click here for all Castlereagh League results.
