Walcha entered a team in the Armidale 7s knockout competition for the first time in several years with a team boasting a plethora of speed through Pat Keen, Dom (the 7s specialist) Bower, Dicko Young, Ed Churchill, Brad Partridge, Ed Cordingley, Angus MacTavish and George Berry as well as a couple of blokes more on the experienced side in Dave Healey and Henry King.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The day started early with Walcha facing Armidale Barbarians, led by Walcha local Cal Chrichton, and given it was St Patricks Day, Pat Keen found himself on the end of some nice play to pick up an early double as did Cordo and after the 14 minutes was up, Walcha finished 38-7 on top.
The second game of the day was against defending champions Narwan, which was to be a big test to see where the Walcha team was positioned for the finals later in the day. Dicko Young opened the scoring early but Walcha put themselves under a lot of pressure, turning over a lot of possession, with Henry King being a prime culprit. Eventually though, Walcha were able to assert dominance at the breakdown and put themselves in a position to win the game. Brad Partridge put the game to bed in the end despite giving coach Baz a slight heart palpitation by side-stepping a few ghost defenders on the way to the tryline. Nevertheless, he managed to score in the corner and Walcha had announced themselves as contenders for the title.
The games against Albies and Armidale II were mainly drop goal practice as the boys scored tries at will and Walcha progressed to the finals at the top of their pool. Armidale Blues were the opponent in the semi final and it was not long before Walcha opened the scoring and half time saw Walcha leading 14-0. George Berry was the only remaining player yet to score and when Dom Bower launched a kick from inside the Walcha 22, it was clear George would not be bearing all that evening as he showed plenty of speed to fly down the touchline and beat all others to the Ball to guarantee the Walcha boys a spot in the semi final.
Inverell had defeated Narwan in the other semi final leaving the only 2 Central North teams as the last ones standing. Inverell clearly had an up the guts mentality and tried to blunt Walcha’s faster attack by bashing the ball up. Despite a classic Ed Churchill try, slipping through a number of tackles, Inverell led 12-5 at the half time break. Walcha had to regroup at half time and did just that, sending Dom Bower away down the wing on the end of some slick passing before Dicko Young weaved his way through the defence to score from 70 metres out and Pat Keen put the game beyond doubt with a nice solo try.
It was a great hitout to start the season and while many thought it would be Pat Keen voted best player, it was in fact his old man after kicking off the wines as the first game kicked off at 8:30 am, he proved to be a valuable support player and while his communication dropped off a bit, he was vocal all day and kept team morale very high. Good signs for the season ahead for the Rams and a handy $3000 cheque to go with it (all of which would have been polished over the bar that evening if it weren’t for president scrooge mc-crawf!).
