BEFORE Saturday’s Blowes Clothing Cup fixture at Endeavour Oval was called off, Orange Emus produced what assistant coach Andrew Logan called “one of our better performances of the season”.
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The greens piled 89 points in the 70 minutes played and conceded zero.
With Parkes down to 11 men thanks to a player shortage, the game was called off as Emus enforced what was essentially a mercy rule.
“We executed well in a difficult situation and difficult conditions,” Logan enthused.
“There’s not a lot of motivation in a game like that and it’s easy to get loose. We didn’t do that.
“We carried really straight, our handling was very, very good I thought.
“We were still creative, we still tried to play rugby so I think, funnily enough, it’s probably one of our better performances of the season under sort of ridiculous conditions.”
In a game which featured uncontested scrums from the outset thanks to Parkes’ lack of front-rowers, Emus’ dominance was obvious from the opening kick off.
Winger Tom Green and five-eighth AJ Sykes both scored doubles in the opening 40 minutes while fullback Marty Bryan, centre and skipper Nigel Staniforth, flanker-come-winger Mitch Lockley, second-rower Sam McLean and breakaway Andrew Cosgrove all scored first half five-pointers as well.
Those combined with Staniforth’s three conversions – his radar was somewhat askew in the opening period – Emus led 51-0 at the half-time break.
The next 30 minutes didn’t get any easier for Parkes.
Green scored another brace after half-time to finish with a quartet of tries while Bryan scored another, as did Staniforth, and Nick Hughes-Clapp and Lachie Harris both helped themselves to meat pies as well.
Green was particularly impressive for Emus.
The Central West Blue Bulls winger’s tries didn’t come on the end of slick backline movements, as they so often do.
Instead, all four of them were magnificent individual efforts where he was forced to beat a number of Parkes defenders and cover plenty of ground to reach the stripe.
Combined with his double last weekend against Mudgee and hat-trick the weekend prior against Narromine, the fuzzy-wuzzy winger has now scored nine tries in his last three appearances in myrtle green.
The victory keeps Emus several points clear of Forbes atop the competitions standings and Logan said it was made all the more impressive after a number of late changes to the backline.
With Carter Hirini originally named and fullback and then ruled out, Emus were forced to reshuffle.
Bryan moved to fullback from the wing and flanker Mitch Lockley moved on to the wing to eliminate disruption in the reserve grade side.
ORANGE EMUS 89 (Tom Green 4, Nigel Staniforth 2, Marty Bryan 2, AJ Sykes 2, Lachie Harris, Sam McLean, Nick Hughes-Clapp, Mitch Lockley, Andrew Cosgrove tries; Staniforth 7 conversions) def PARKES BOARS 0