The Raiders continued the perfect start to their 2015 North Coast Football season with a resounding 5-0 win over the Coffs Coast Tigers in an entertaining ANZAC day clash.
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This match saw many Raiders players come up against their old mentor in Tigers coach and ambassador of pure football Greg McCoy.
McCoy had two separate coaching stints at Urunga Football Club and many would say he was instrumental in forging the attractive, possession based game that the Raiders play to this day.
Urunga were without strikers Cale Simmonds and Sam Sawtell, as well as midfield playmaker Grant Homes (whom some call the fittest man in Australian football) as he was still recovering from his completion of the inaugural Bathurst 1000 Fun Run.
With such an ensemble of goal scoring talent unavailable any notion that Urunga would struggle to find the net was quashed after just 40 seconds. A free kick was won just outside the Tigers penalty area, Kale Hopper drove in a low, grass-scorching delivery which Jai Wadick met at the near post to flick past an “ambush” (google it) of Tigers defenders to open the account.
The Orange were still scratching their heads in disbelief and confusion when fullback Lachie Indian-Manning bombed down the right hand side, got behind his marker and squared along the turf to give Ben Dooley the simplest of tap-ins.
2-0 in less than two minutes and it was already looking like a long afternoon ahead for the Tigers, but they regrouped well and for the rest of the game offered the Raiders precious little in the way of clear cut chances from open play. In fact the remaining three goals all came from dead ball situations. A Ben Dooley burst into the box in the 40th minute was terminated by a combination of the goalkeeper and the last defender. A penalty was awarded which Kale Hopper dispatched from the dinner plate for his third goal in four matches.
Jai Waddick added his second of the day in the 75th minute. The Tigers keeper misplaced his defensive wall on a free kick from 22 yards out and Wadick – the man with the beard of a thousand fires – calmly curled his shot around the wall and inside the post with consummate ease.
With 3 minutes remaining Dom Kelly-Ramirez soared above a crowded penalty area to meet a corner kick and power a header into the spider webs. It capped off an absolutely dominant midfield display by the big unit, and his ambiguous celebration had spectators wondering whether it was the “chainsaw”, the lesser known “lawn mower”, or the rarely seen “disgruntled plumber”.
In reserve grade the Raiders came back from 1-0 down at half time to blitz the Tigers 5-2. New European signing Luka Pomarelli scored a contender for goal of the season with a stunning chest – juggle – volley goal from outside the box. A few pundits are calling him the next Dennis Bergkamp, most are not. Goals to Allen Snow, Asama Radford, Nick O’Mullane and Jack Martin polished off a stirring second half display.
This Sunday the Raiders return to the Cabbage Patch for round five against Northern Storm. Matches at 12pm and 2pm at Morgo St, Urunga.