Report courtesy of the Pink Parrot

After a 4-week hiatus from journalism the Pink Parrot is back on the perch discussing all things Western Plains Rugby and the Tri-Colours progress during the season.

A quick recount for Gular

Since the Parrot has been a bit behind, a quick recount on the season just far. In the men’s side of the club, Mark Colwell has taken on the coaching role and supported by fellow Gular Rugby Old Boy, Mark Walker.

The men’s team has started their season with 3 losses prior to this weekend’s fixture. 54-5 away loss to Coonamble, a home loss to Bre/Bourke 26-0 and a 22-7 loss away to Cobar.

The women’s team is back on board for this season and have been kept into line by skipper Caitlynn King and Coaches Zac Mills and Greg King. The girls have been performing well in their matches their first game was a nail biting 5-4 loss to Coonamble another cracker vs Bre/Bourke winning 6-5 and last week a 7-6 loss vs Cobar.

Bulls too good on Saturday

Gular on Saturday hosted the self-proclaimed 2021 Premiers, the Bogan Bulls on Saturday. Unfortunately Nyngan doesn’t have a women’s team so our girls had to sit this weekend out.

The young Galahs with an average age of 21 across the park, played their backsides out against a strong Bulls line up with a mixture of local, and sourced players.

Led by Skipper Michael Roche, Gular started the match on the front foot, startling the Bulls with Gular camping themselves in Nyngan’s half for the majority of the first half.

Gular’s youngsters were led tirelessly by stalwarts Will and Tim Bowman who continually get better with age and they almost crossed the line to be held up by a resilient Bulls defensive line.

But the Bulls were a little too proactive with their defence and were repeatedly penalised for being offside and this coincided with a Bulls player spending 10 minutes in the sin bin.

Gular continued to pepper the line through George Alchin and Dev Bamblett but a try went beckoning and the Bulls went into halftime with a 7-0 lead.

At the half time break coach Colwell was full of praise for his youngsters as James Kildey was brilliant in defence and was doing a great job at loose head prob.

ABOVE: Nick Ryan reaches for the ball to keep it out of Nyngan hands.

Stephen Owens was a man on a mission, holding his own in the scrum at hooker and also was defending the house down with plenty of aggression.

The backs were being led by hard straight lines from Clayton Chapman who was pestering the Bulls flyhalf who got relegated to the wing by their coach, ouch.

The Galahs were soon given another leg up as a late and high shot from a Bulls’ player had the yellow card drawn again. As the match went on, the Tri-Colours would have been awarded no less than 5 high tackle penalties.

But this didn’t deter the Galahs and the halftime break brought on some changes, enter rookie Archie Haling. One of the smaller players on the field who absolutely whaled the Nyngan inside centre with a text book tackle, this fired up the Galahs as Nick Ryan was brilliant around the ruck with instrumental defence.

The work of the Galahs around the ruck had the Bulls’ players frustrated and typical chat of ‘Sir’ was ringing in the ears of those present at the McGrane Oval and the houses adjoining.

A volunteer lines-person even managed to cop a mouthful from the Nyngan halfback as their star import was adjudicated to have stepped on the sideline.

The Galahs continued to give their all against the competition favourites and never gave up during the match as the Bulls went home with a deserved 28-0 victory over the home team.

Points were awarded to Clay Chapman 3, Nick Ryan 2 and Stevo Owens and James Kildey shared 1 point. George Alchin who defensively played the house down was awarded players player by his peers.

ABOVE: Gular prepares for another offensive set from the ruck.

While the Pink Parrot is just a bush journo he would like to give his own praise to a couple of Gular players, firstly would have to be Richard Ryan. Easily the smallest halfback I have seen take a rugby field and played one of the gutsiest games of rugby I have seen in a Gular jersey. Nothing was too big, too hard or too exhausting for Richard, a game of rugby that had many Gular Rugby fans proud.

My final praise of the match goes to veteran Will Bowman. As usual, Bowman was everywhere and anywhere. A true GOAT of Western Plains and Gular Rugby, Bowman again proved his worth on the park, whether it was through, kicks in play, lineouts, scrums, pilfering, you name it. Bowman did it.

Next weekend the Galahs travel to Warren where the Men’s and Women’s teams take on the Pumas and Pumaettes which as always is a big game for Gular and many spectators are expected to travel over for game.