Debuant Dredin Sorensen with coach Damian Willis.
The Junee Diesels have left their faithful in pure ecstasy after a dramatic late try by star hooker Quaider Kea, left the reigning premiers speechless, as the Diesels recaptured a lead that was in their possession for much of the game in the dying embers of the clash, to secure the 30-28 win over their counterparts.
The Diesels flew out of the traps with flying Fijian and crowd favourite Ratu Saurara opening proceedings after a lovely bit of Diesels football. Cooper Wright added the extras and the Diesels had an early advantage inside 10 minutes. This shocked the Pickers into action, with stalwart Matt Murray coming to the fore.
It didn’t take the Young sidelong to respond with five-eighth Murray, slicing his way through, close to the Diesels’ goal line. Tom Demieo; who kept his role at hooker this week, pushing the returning Jesse Corcoran to lock, converted the extras and the scores were level.
The Diesels had a roaring crowd behind them at Laurie Daley Oval, and they conjured two tries in quick succession through winger Fiti Taalol and big back-rower Jack Schubert.
Wright nailed one of two of the conversions and the Diesels found themselves with an unlikely 16-6 lead.
The good times kept rolling for the Diesels with the ever-talented Saurara doubling his tally soon after. This was preceded by a Wright penalty goal and with the centre converting the Fijian’s try, the Diesels led 24-6.
Jese Wainibuli found himself in the sin bin at the 38th-minute mark and this setback allowed the Cherrypickers some hope. The Pickers, as always, were never down and out, and off the back of some silly errors from the home side, clawed their way back, through tries from Matt Noakes, Aborosio Navori (2) and fullback Issac Matalavea-Booth.
With the addition of a penalty goal, Young added another 2 points and had seemingly completed the come-back breaking Junee’s hearts with a 28-24 scoreline.
Late on in the game when all hope seemed lost, Quaider Kea, who has been a Swiss army knife of sorts for the Diesels this season, filling in along the backline, crashed over the line, withdrawing nothing but jubilation from the home crowd. Wright calm as ever nailed the conversion and the Diesels successfully toppled the reigning Group 9 Premiers 30-28.
Diesels President David Holt believes the day marked the turning point of his side.
“It was good in how it was played out, the boys, even though Young got back in front, stuck to their guns and ended up coming up with the cookies,” Holts aid.
“It shows a lot of character within the club for those blokes to want to stay here. It’s coming up trumps for them now.
“At the back end of the game, when things were not looking good and it looked like we had blown an 18-point lead; for them to then pull themselves together says a lot about all 17 that wore a Diesels guernsey Saturday.
“Jaydyn Hoeta and Quaider Kea, they’ve been solid since they’ve turned up. Dredin Sorensen came in off the back of his tour of France, he was in the French League, so those imported players that we got in were up for the challenge and added a fair bit.
“The local side of things, Sam Sainsbury, he’s just a workhorse week in and week out. He’s only a young bloke and he’s got a lot of football in front of him. Fole, you can’t go past, he had a massive impact on Saturday’s game.
“Damian Willis, even though he’s standing on the sideline and not playing anymore, has good football head on him, and for him to be able to sit on the sideline and watch and be able to direct traffic even from the bench, not out on the field like he’d love to be.
“Chase (Bernard) and Ben (Shea) are due in the next couple of weeks, two or three weeks, Chase will have a huge impact and we are fully confident Ben will too, we’ve already seen the impact that Chase could have last year. He came in mid-season and you could see players lift over three weeks.
“Players like Tommy Carroll, each week you coulds ee him getting better, better, better, Tommy hasn’t backed off, actually, like whatever ad-ice Chase offered him last year, Tommy took that on board and he’s only going to get better, he’s early 20s. He’s a big boy and he’ll make a pretty fair impact in future seasons.”
Junee faces a tough away trip this weekend, travelling to Albury to play the Thunder; Albury will be looking to right the wrongs of last week when they lost to the South City Bulls.
Holt said on this week’s opponents, “It’s tough because of the travel. We are more confident against Albury than we are against Young. Nobody was expecting us to beat Young. Even though we had good prep, the guys got themselves ready for a big game because they didn’t want to be embarrassed.
“It means a lot more if we follow it up with another win this week.”
Elsewhere in Group 9 the Temora Dragons held onto the Group 9 challenge cup, not needing the +5.5 the judges gave them as they beat Tumut, SouthCity managed their first win of the season against Albury, Gundagai just outlasted Temora and the Wagga Kangaroos stamped their authority on their local rival Brothers in a 66-0 thumping.
Group 9 Ladder.
1. Wagga Kangaroos,188, 12pts.
2. Tumut Blues, 24,9pts.
3. Young Cherrypickers,126, 8pts.
4. Temora Dragons,116, 8pts.
5. Gundagai Tigers, 26,8pts.
6. Albury Thunder, 48,5pts.
7. South City Bulls, -42,4pts.
8. Junee Diesels, -80,4pts.
9. Cootamundra Bull-dogs, -94, 2pts.
10. Wagga Brothers, -312, 0pts.
Group 9 Draw
Saturday31st of May – Sunday, June 1st. Temora Dragons vs Young Cherrypickers. Tumut Blues vs Wagga Kangaroos.Wagga Brothers vs Gundagai Tigers. Albury Thunder vs Junee Diesels Sunday 2:35 pm at Green Field Oval Albury. Cootamundra Bulldogs vs South City Bulls.
-Tully Potts
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