Having already played Terrigal in the round games of the Central Coast Gala Day, the team had a good understanding of what they were up against. The game was a very dour contest with both teams enjoying the contest of the battle. Terrigal played early through the middle, before setting up many raids on our right side defence. Credit to Owen Flaherty who saw a lot of traffic but held firm all day. The St Eddies boys tried hard and at times too hard – which led to a few handling errors and penalties for being off-side in defence. This created a lot of unwanted pressure on us defensively and led to a number of repeat sets across both halves for Terrigal to continue to mount pressure.

But credit where credit is due, the team held strong and defended their mistakes, diffusing and turning away the Terrigal team on numerous occasions. Late in the first half, Tyler Moriarty took advantage of a quick play-the-ball to scoot away up the middle and send Sandon Smith over to score and give us and early lead. Terrigal scored right on the bell to see the score finish at 6-4 half-time. Early in the second half, Riley Stevenson finally got some space off a scrum and raced 60 m to score untouched and give us the ascendency. Terrigal to their credit continued to claw away at us and a glut of possession saw them score to trail 12-10, with a few minutes to play. Under extreme pressure and some anxious moments in the last few sets – the boys held on to win.

The team now progresses via the City Pathway in the Schoolboy Trophy Competition to play in the State Semi Finals in Sydney on Tuesday 13 August.