Discipline costly for Magpies

The Cowra Magpies will host another Woodbridge Cup semi final this weekend after falling at the hands of reigning premiers Manildra at Sid Kallas Oval. Going into last Sunday's qualifying semi finals as undefeated minor premiers the Magpies, after dominating play for the first 10 minutes, were no match for the Rhinos, suffering a 28-14 loss. In the end it was a lack of discipline that let the home side down. "Piggy back penalties really hurt us," Magpies coach Phil Ingram said after the match. "We went away from the plan we had and really poor discipline hurt us in the end," Ingram said. Three Magpies were sinbinned in the second half as the frustrated Magpies tried to claw their way back from a 16-0 half time deficit. The visitors opened the scoring against the run of play in the 10th minute with a try out wide to centre Jayden Fahey following some poor mid field defence from the Magpies. Fahey's attempted conversion of his own try was waved away. Looking for a quick reply from his side Magpies coach Phil Ingram was disappointed with the response. The Magpies allowed Manildra to follow up three minutes later with a second try, this time courtesy of second rower Kaeden Dickson. Fahey's successful conversion gave Manildra the lead 10-0 With penalties continuing to flow against the home side Manildra again took full advantage of good field position to add another converted try to their tally, this time through fullback Josefa Lasagavibau to give them a 16-0 lead at the break. The necessary fightback looked to be on when Ricky Whitton chipped over the top and appeared to ground the ball only to be denied when the referee consulted his touch judges. From that point it all went down hill for Cowra with Dave Doran sinbinned a short time later for a swinging arm followed by stints in the bin from Stevie Ingram and Tyson Williams. And when Rhinos five-eighth Luke Peatrie crashed over to stretch Manildra's lead to 22-0 there was only going to be one result with 20 minutes of play remaining. "We were clawing our way back but just left our run too late, we were dominant at times before piggy back penalties leading to tries and putting us behind 16 points," Ingram said. "We've just got to shift our focus now to Peak Hill on Sunday." The Magpies should get Luke Kinsey back for that match but have lost Mitchell Hatch for the season with rib cartilage damage. "We're getting a bad run of injuries and need to work on getting back together to turn it around, we're playing sudden death football now. "Hopefully we can put in a better performance than what we did on the weekend," Ingram said.