Another wonderful Brisbane spring day for the Preliminary Final, with clouds and a few drips of rain, combined with a fresh wind, providing some relief for the players and spectators at Brandon Park.
Centenary won the toss and chose to run with the breeze, although it was Arana who started the better with Mitchell Carr opening the scoring in the 4th minute with a try wide out - there was a hint of a double movement but the ref and touch judge conferred and were satisfied. The difficult conversion attempt fell just short and Arana appeared to have put the bad memories of their scoreless game the previous week behind them. Unfortunately their respite was to be short-lived, as through a combination of their good ball control and Arana errors, Centenary came charging back, scoring three tries in a 12 minute period. Lagi was too strong from dummy half for the first, Tim Mc saw Arana's defence had drifted in and threw a great wide pass to their winger for the second, and Tim Mc himself scored the third, running off a great offload from Lagi. With 2 of the tries converted Centenary had jumped away to a 16-4 lead after 22 minutes. Arana recovered the ball from the next kick-off however, and a great burst down the blind side by Nash was backed up by Brendan who laid the ball back rugby-style for Mitchell to pick up and go over for his second try. despite a mistake from the restart Arana were able to hold out Centenary for the rest of the first half to go into the break trailing by 8 points, 16-8.
Both teams opened the second half well, completing their first two sets, but Arana were the first to break the line, with a dash from Brendan opening the scoring in the 6th minute of the second stanza. Alex T's conversion brought Arana back within 2 points and they were back into the match. The next 10 minutes produced some desperation football from both sides, with mistakes creeping in as they both looked for that crucial try. Finally the break came when Josey, in his first game back, ran from the back of the scrum and scored close to the posts to put Arana in front for the first time, with Alex T's conversion stretching the margin to 4 points. Once again, Arana failed to gather in the kick-off, setting up a frenetic 10 miinutes with Centenary throwing everything at the Arana defence. Arana held firm, with the highlight being a magnificent chase by Brent to tackle Tim Mc from behind when he seemed certain to score. Tempers eventually bubbled over with ten minutes remaining with Mitchell and Nick W being banished to the sin-bin after an altercation. This seemed to unsettle the Centenary side, and following a penalty to Arana, after Alex T was taken late after a kick the Arana side finally got the opportunity to seal the match, with Alex T dashing through a tiring defence scoring a converted try to wrap up the match. A late try to Josey, a a fine conversion from Rob wrapped up the scoring to make the final score 32-16, which belied the closeness of the game. It was a great team effort by Arana to come back from last week's defeat and the first half deficit , and they can now look forward to taking another crack at the defending premiers.
By the minute:
4th min: Arana try; Arana 4-0
8th min: Centenary try/conv; Centenary 6-4
18th min: Centenary try; Centenary 10-4
21st min: Centenary try/conv; Centenary 16-4
23rd min: Arana try; Centenary 16-8 (HT)
36th min: Arana try/conv; Centenary 16-14
46th min: Arana try/conv; Arana 20-16
55th min:Arana try/conv: Arana 26-16
57th min: Arana try/conv; Arana 32-16 (FT)
Enjoy the Grand Final - and may the best team win (especially if it's Arana!!)
Brad T
15/9/2002
