St Pat's prove too good for Magpies in opening clash

But after posting the first points, the visitors showed no signs of slowing down and recorded a resounding 44-10 victory in their opening round clash of the Western U21s competition.

It took only four minutes for St Pat's to open their account after a few repeat sets on the Cowra try line.

The game started to quickly get away from Cowra off the back of poor defence and handling errors, with the scoreline blowing out to 28-0 just before the half time.

Mere seconds before the break, Aiden Stait was sent to the bin after multiple penalties, allowing Cowra a brief reprieve.

Mgapies workman Jack Harper took advantage of the uneven numbers and crossed the stripe to take the score to 28-6 at the half.

Another St Pat's player was sat down for 10 minutes at the resumption of play however the numbers disadvantage did not bother the visitors, with Jack McLeod crossing for the first of his two tries - 34-6.

Nick Barlow then barged over with ten minutes remaining in the clash, blowing the scoreline out to 40-6.

It looked as though Cowra would have the last say in the match courtesy of a Mitch Hatch try in the corner but Will Poole decided to silence the home side fans one last time with a four-pointer in the final minute 44-10.

St Pat's coach Tyson Medlyn said his side was focused on minimising errors and getting through their sets.

"We just wanted to come out here and play controlled football," he said.

"I thought the boys did a good job in doing that."

Medlyn said praised his bench players however believed the result came down to a dominate performance by the whole team.

"Our halves, they're very, very young so we needed our forward pack to step up just to give them something to play off the back of," he said.

"We spoke about setting a platform and the boys who come off the bench obviously have to hold it and if not, add to it and we just wanted to control the middle. Everyone did well."

Looking to the next round, Medlyn said discipline would be a focus at training.

"Ten minutes to go and you're looking at the changing room but the job's not done yet so we've just got to make sure that we get to that half time."

Despite the scoreline, Magpies coach Brett Jeffries said he was happy with his side's performance, highlighting the efforts of Sam Haeata at hooker and captain Darcy Howard.

"They did a lot of defence and with our attack, they held the ball and got through a couple of the sets of six, so I was happy with that," he said.

Going forward, Jeffries said defence will be front of mind.

"You just can't win games when you're 95 per cent of the time making tackles," he said.

"It's only a short little competition but we all agreed... that our defence is what was the big problem here today.

"A lot of mistakes led to tries which didn't help but the boys are going alright, they're still positive."

BATHURST ST PAT'S 44 (Jack McLeod 2, Will Poole 2, Cooper Nunan, Aiden Stait, Nic Barlow, Mitch Collins tries; Poole 6 goals) defeated COWRA MAGPIES 10 (Mitch Hatch, Jack Harper tries; Darcy Howard goal)

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