Sam Turner of the Marrar Bombers caught up with The Junee Independent to talk about last weekend’s win and what it means for the side going deep in to a final series thwart with danger.
“The boys had a good win, actually. They played very well. The Rock have been, sort of, the second half of the year, they’ve been probably one of the form teams in the comp, and they’ve come in to finals on the back of a couple of big wins. So to come away with a with a 30 point win, they all played really well.
There has been solid competitiveness over the years between the two sides and Turner relished the win.
“It was good to get a good win over the arch rivals. There were some very happy boys after the game.
“We’ve played The Rock in a lot of grand finals over the years, so we probably would consider them arch rivals, especially some of the older guys around the club. They pencil in the games against The Rock. We play the ANZAC challenge against them as well. There’s usually the song sung with a bit of extra enthusiasm when we beat The Rock.
“The Rock, they are sort of a similar to us. They’ve got their handful of locals, but they are lucky enough that they’re close enough to Wagga, that’s only 15 minutes out the road and they get a couple from Albury as well.
Marrar continues to punch above its weight in the competition.
“If you counted the surrounds, there’s probably 200, the farming houses in the vicinity sort of thing, but it wouldn’t be any more than that, that’s for sure.
“We’ve been lucky recently, we’ve got a connection with the Wagga Swans through our junior base. We get a lot of players come through the ranks there, which is good because you can’t rely on recruiting players all the time. You need to produce through your junior ranks.
“It’s definitely a battle most years to try and come up with enough players, but I think a lot of clubs are in that same boat. Our under 17s this year was a battle, but they managed to get a team, and two or three weeks out from the first game we were looking at forfeiting the team. So for them to get a team on the paddock every single week this year, it was a huge effort from the coaches and the players’ parents and things like that.
“We are very proud of them to still get a team on the park every week. They played on the weekend, they got rolled, but there’s a good core of young fellas in that team. Hopefully they all stick around because the under 17s, they’ve been the reason for our recent success.
The Bombers did have a netball side make the finals which is a good sign for the club. “The only other team we had in was the A grade netball and they had a really good win over North Wagga, so they are through to the preliminary final and play Temora this Saturday for a spot in the grand final.
“Temora finished on top. They’re a pretty good, formidable sort of a team, but if they play like they did on the weekend, I think they’ll give them a bit of a run.
“We played the elimination final on Sunday at The Rock. So we’ll play Temora as well. If we win that, we play the loser out of East Wagga and CSU. Whoever wins that goes straight into the grand final.
“We are life and death every week from here on in, but if we can play like we did on the weekend, I think we’re a red hot chance.
“The A Grade finished third, so they have a second chance if they lose on Saturday, but if they win, they’re straight into the grand final and get a weekend off. They play on Saturday.
“We play on Sunday at 2:30pm.
“I think the competition is so even. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we got beat by three or four goals on the weekend, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if we made the grand final.
“Every team that’s still in it has beaten each other at some point. We beat Temora by one point last time we played them, but they beat us convincingly in round one. And then CSU, we beat them by 70 points the first time we played them, and then they beat us by 25 points the second time we played them.
“Apart from East Wagga who are daylight ahead of everybody else.
“They went the year undefeated last year and fell over in the grand final, so stranger things can happen, but you have just got to get there.”
One thing is for sure, Marrar will give it their best shot!
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