April 29, 2014
The Kingaroy Red Ants picked up their second win of the 2014 rugby league season when they defeated the Monto Roos 46-22 at T.J. O’Neill Oval last Saturday.
The game began evenly enough with a try each to Kingaroy (Anthony Eden) and Monto (Blake Popp).
The score remained locked at 6-all until Jye Hopkins broke the deadlock with 23 minutes left in the first half, putting Kingaroy ahead.
It was then all Red Ants until the half-time siren with tries to Chris Congoo, Luke Beatty and Brandon Walsh.
At half-time the score was Kingaroy 26, Monto 6.
The Roos got off to a good start in the second half, with their standout player Shane Carter scoring the first of his three tries. Carter’s conversion was good, taking the score to 26-12.
A few minutes later, the Roos were on the attack again, but this time the Kingaroy defence held.
With 3o minutes left in the match, Kingaroy won a scrum against the feed and after a few passes Josh Flood scored in the corner.
Monto attempted a counter-attack but dropped the ball in front of the goals. A stoppage for player injury then broke their momentum.
With 24 minutes left, Nick Otto scored for Kingaroy, taking the score to 34-12.
Shane Carter then scored back-to-back tries for Monto, bringing the Roos to 22 points and looking to have a chance back in the game.
But that was their last hurrah.
Kingaroy scored twice more (Kyle Doolin and Jye Hopkins) to bring the fulltime score to 46-22.
Kingaroy scored nine tries to four, so the victory would have been much greater but for the missed conversions.
Five Red Ants players shared the kicking duties with Josh Flood, Anthony Eden, Kyle Doolin (3) taking successful goals.
In comparison, Shane Carter took all Monto’s goal attempts, kicking three from four.
This was only Kingaroy’s second win of the season.
This weekend they face the undefeated Cherbourg Hornets at Nanango.
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Other senior games in Round 4 were played at Gayndah:
Nanango picked up their first win of the season, defeating Gayndah 56-10.
Wondai, playing only their second match of the year after back-to-back byes, was narrowly defeated 26-24 by Theodore.
Cherbourg remain undefeated after overcoming Mundubbera 28-16.
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The Wondai Wolves, defeated 132-nil at their last outing, have been forced to withdraw their U16 team from the competition due to lack of numbers.
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This weekend’s senior matches will be played at Nanango with a double-header: Kingaroy v Cherbourg at 4:30pm and Nanango v Wondai at 6:30pm. Junior games will be played at Nanango, Kingaroy and Murgon.
