Casuarina Cougars win early brag rights over the South Darwin Rabbitohs before semi-finals

CASUARINA Cougars earned early bragging rights over semi-final opponents South Darwin winning a tightly contested 29-27 affair in the final round of the Darwin A-grade rugby union regular season.

Casuarina’s Simaika Salaa attempts a charge-down. Picture GLENN CAMPBELL

CASUARINA Cougars earned early bragging rights over semi-final opponents South Darwin winning a tightly contested 29-27 affair in the final round of the Darwin A-grade rugby union regular season.

An early try from Joshua Phillips set the platform for Cougars but their adversaries were never out of the contest fighting hard to take second on the competition table.

Toby Kliangprom, Jone Vakacegu and Marc Pilu all crossed the line for the Bunnies and late offensive pressure would have had the side hopeful of stealing the win.

But a Ryan McMurray double, including a crucial intercept effort, and a Martin Strachan score kept Casuarina in the clear.

Cougars captain Mark Ross was pleased with the efforts of his squad feeling they had set a strong platform heading into the finals.

“It was great to get the win particularly going into finals where we will face them again next week,” Ross said.

“We let them back a bit in the last twenty minutes but our attitude shone through and we held them off pushing through. Tonight was clinical and we set the platform for finals.”

In a contrasting game, the unbeaten University Pirates beat bottom side Palmerston 101-10 though the Crocs held their heads high having played both A-grade and B-grade games after one another.

Pirates captain Ben Parkes was proud of his side’s efforts through the season saying the side’s focus was still on the final prize.

“A lot of respect to the Palmy boys, they played two games and that’s just good respect to the rugby community,” Parkes told the NT News.

“We’ve focused a lot on our discipline and sticking to our structures and that’s been our big thing going into finals playing our brand of rugby and that showed tonight

“McKenzie (Fairfax) really stood out, there was a few times where he could have pushed the pass but he just slowed it down and allowed us to play our way.”

University will push their case for the grand final against reigning premiers Darwin Dragons in the semis while Cougars and South Darwin will face-off once again.