Saturday, March 16, 2013
By BEN HARRIS
Sydney Rebels made it a hat-trick of national titles in the mixed opens division by defeating the Brisbane City Cobras 9-8 in a drop-off.
In a match that lived up to the pre-match hype, the two sides showed off their skills during a touchdown-fest.
Rebels co-captain Matthew Wigg said to win a third title was an incredible feeling.
“This grand final win is the best win out of all of them. It is pretty good,” he said.
“The [Western] Tigers took it to us [in the semi-final]. It was probably the longest drop-off any of us have been involved in and we weren’t happy to go to another one [in the final] that was for sure.”
Jamie Chan was fantastic for the Rebels, scoring a hat-trick of touchdowns and taking home the male Player of the Final award.
“Jamie Chan was a legend, he spent about 50 per cent of the time on the field in both drop-offs,” Wigg said.
“But all the big guns stepped up as well. Manu [Wakely], Rushy [Daniel Rushworth], Frosty [Christian Frost] and all the other boys did really well to get us to the line.”
The Rebels posted two early touchdowns thanks to Chan before Phoebe Thomas got the Cobras on the line.
The two sides traded touchdowns until half-time where the Rebels took a 3-2 lead into the break.
But it was the Brisbane side that came out firing in the second half.
From the restart, the Cobras ran down the left-side of the field and the women’s Player of the Final, Alyce Hulbert, crossed over to level things up.
They soon had the lead when Natasha Clifford crossed the white stripe.
It was a cat and mouse game; whenever the Cobras scored the Rebels would hit straight back.
It was like that until the full-time whistle when it was 7-all and it continued in the drop-off.
The Rebels scored first in the drop-off through Tina Ashworth but the Cobras hit back in their reply set thanks to Lachlan Stanton’s third touchdown.
With the scores at 8-all, the teams dropped to four players.
But it was soon all over when Christian Frost scored the decisive touchdown to give his side their third consecutive Mixed Open title.
SYDNEY REBELS 9 (Jamie Chan 3, Manu Wakely 2, Jason Say, Carly Walsh, Christian Frost, Tina Ashworth touchdowns) def BRISBANE CITY COBRAS 8 (Lachlan Stanton 3, Kieran Poole 2, Natasha Clifford 2, Alyce Hulbert touchdowns).
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Mixed opens final
