The Macleay Valley Mustangs have extended their winning streak to five with a hard-fought 26-14 victory over the Wauchope Blues at Verge Street Oval on Saturday, July 20.
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Macleay Valley opened the scoring and took a narrow lead in the first half before the Blues levelled the game at 4-all at halftime.
The Mustangs powered through in the second half, scoring five tries in total thanks to Viliame Tobesewa, Shane Davis-Caldwell, who scored twice, Miles Mongta, and Tirell Dungay.
Wauchope crossed the line three times with tries from Manning Lawrie, Reuben Trick, and Owen Blair. Shane Davis-Caldwell three of his team's tries, while Wauchope managed one successful conversion by Sam Watts.
Mustangs coach Beau Champion said he was happy with his team's ability to "find a way to win"after they made it hard for themselves with their low completion rate.
"We continued to turn over the ball, especially in the first half, which was disappointing," he said. "I think we may have completed at 50 per cent if we're lucky.
"If you're not competing at at least 75 per cent, most teams wouldn't be able to find a way to win from there as fatigue starts to set in because of the amount of defending you have to do.
"It's good that we're finding different ways to win games; that will keep us in good form for the back end of the year and give us an opportunity to address a few things we need to tidy up this week."
Champion said the team's defensive effort, particularly in the first half, made him proud.
"What I was very proud of was [that,] during the amount of defence and tackling that we had to do at our end of the field, we kept turning up for one another."
The Mustangs now sit in second place on the Group Three Rugby League ladder, one point ahead of the Old Bar Pirates.
Champion said the team's resilience has been clear in the second half of the season.
"If we had turned over that much ball when we played Wauchope earlier in the year, I don't think we could have kept them to just 14 points," he said.
"It shows that we're growing as a team and beginning to come out on top in tough clashes."
The Mustangs will enjoy the bye this weekend before they face Taree City and the current ladder-leaders Port Macquarie Sharks in successive weeks.
