Day 3 Review | 2022 Santos Wheelchair Rugby National Championship NSW Gladiators snare Division 1 gold medal, ACT Buccaneers take Division 2

Division 1 Gold Medal Match
NSW Gladiators 65-56 Queensland Cyclones

Defending champions, the NSW Gladiators are back-to-back Santos Wheelchair Rugby National Championship titleholders after they defeated the Queensland Cyclones 65-56 on the Gold Coast on Sunday.

The match was a mirror image of last year’s gold medal decider which delivered the first post-Covid national title to NSW and silver to Queensland.

The huge Sunday crowd at the Gold Coast Sports and Leisure Centre at Carrara was treated to a great spectacle from the get-go and for the entire match.

They were also witness to one of the great athlete match ups in world sport with electric Australian Steelers and NSW captain Ryley Batt and Queensland’s Canadian star Zac Madell giving each other as good as they got.

That included a bone jarring centreline collision between the two early in the contest that put Madell on his back, before he righted to score a ‘take that’ revenge try just moments later.

It was typical of the play in an even first half before NSW hit a third term purple patch to convert a two try halftime deficit into a seven try lead 48-41 heading into the final quarter.

The pace heading home was frenetic with Batt and Madell thrilling the crowd by burning serious rubber with flying runs down both sides of the court.

NSW Gladiator Andrew Edmondson continued his stellar tournament form with some great passing plays while speedy pair Chad Graham and Richard Voris were also in the thick of the action.

At the same time Cam Whittaker couldn’t have tried harder all match for the Cyclones while Josh Nicholson and Michael Ozanne were workaholics in defence.

But it was the Gladiator’s Day in the end with the Queenslanders powerless to stop the momentum of a team that hadn’t conceded a match the entire tournament and thoroughly deserved to take the 2022 gold medal.

Gladiator head coach Glen Lebeau was full of praise for both sides.

“That final score doesn’t really tell the story of how hard that match was.

“The best players in the world were in their best form here today and right across the tournament and it was great to watch.

“And I thought Richard Voris played one of his best matches ever today, he played amazingly,’ he said.

Cyclones coach Ben Newton said he was proud of his side.

“New South Wales were the better team today, but we didn’t put them under the pump enough right at the end there.

“But back-to-back silver is nothing to be too disappointed about, and we’ve enjoyed a great tournament,” he said.

Division 1 Bronze Medal Match
Victoria Protect Thunder 55-40 Drake Medox New Zealand Wheel Blacks  

The Victoria Protect Thunder have turned in a clinical performance against the New Zealand Wheel Blacks to take their second Division 1 bronze medal in two years.

And the final score line of 55-40 belied what a great match it was.

There were some great match ups right across the boards with ever-bustling New Zealand star Barney Koneferenisi, the imposing Hayden Barton-Cootes and workhorse Gareth Lynch combining as they’d done all tournament to rattle their opposition at key moments.

Meanwhile the Thunder’s mullet proud Jayden Warn and established stars Tom Klein and Shae Graham seemed to be the architects of every effective passage of Victorian play while James McQuillan and Andy Harrison quietly went about what their team needed them to do in the centre and out wide.

Klein was particularly outstanding as he fended off determined Koneferenisi interceptions time after time to score as the Thunder progressed from 11-11 at quarter time to 27-19 at the long break and 40-30 heading into the final eight minutes.

With the Victorian game plan working well opportunities for the Wheel Blacks to claw back the deficit down were limited and as the clock ticked down and Klein not letting up, there was little they could do to deprive the Thunder of a repeat of their bronze medal win in 2021.

Klein, who had not played against the Kiwis before this tournament said he thought the Thunder executed well.

“We knew they were going to come out hot, so we decided just to stick to our game plan and not give them too many turnovers and remain patient, which is exactly what we did,” he said.

Division 2 Gold Medal Match
ACT Buccaneers 60 - 40 SA Sharks

The ACT Buccaneers took the Division 2 gold medal this afternoon, consigning the SA Sharks to the silver medal for the second year in a row 60-40.

For the Buccaneers it was gold on their National Championships debut with no little thanks to key playmaker Josh Hanlon who backed up strong round robin and semi-final performances with today’s take no prisoners approach to the match.

He was a leader in attack and defence in equal measures, ably backed up by the head turning flashy mid-pointer, Sydney University’s Jayden Jackson and the imposing Brett Morris who did some late heavy lifting off the bench.

Ella Sabljak also put in a solid performance and had the honour of scoring the icing-on-the-cake final try of the match.

For the Sharks, Andrew Holloway, Rubie Gallagher, Izzy Evans and the powerful Angus Fowler played their hearts out and can go home to South Australia knowing they gave their all.

But it was the ACT all the way as they turned a 16-11 quarter time lead into 31-19 at half time and 47-28 at the last change into an historic 20-point tournament clinching win.

Josh Hanlon said taking the gold was a surprise of sorts.

“We had a great crew, but I didn’t expect that we’d win the competition coming in.

“We looked at the other line ups and thought we’d have our work cut out for us, but we got a good start in this match and gave it everything we could out of the blocks, and it all worked out for us,” he said.

Division 2 Bronze Medal Match
Australian Barbarians 44 – 41 Melbourne Unicorns

The first match of the day featured the Australian Barbarians and championship debutantes Melbourne Unicorns who were eager for their first kiss of a medal at this level.

It was an enthralling affair with a first half arm wrestle resulting in a 21-18 score line in Melbourne’s favour at the main break.

The back-and-forth scoring trend continued in the third quarter with Unicorns’ Justin Goh exerting plenty of influence and Jack Watson putting his body on the line late in the stanza with a crashing try that saw him spend the rest of the match on the sideline after landing heavily and awkwardly on his right shoulder.

That valiant effort saw the score line creep out at the final change to five tries in Melbourne’s favour.

Ordinarily that would seem a defendable buffer, but this was a medal match where things can change quickly…and today they did.

Like a switch had flicked, Barbarians Brayden Foxley-Connolly and Ron Chaytor took things up a notch and began to pile on tries at will.

They helped level the scores with four minutes to go and kept doing their bit in an eight try last quarter turnaround – the greatest comeback of the week - to have their team snatch the bronze medal 44-41.

An elated Foxley-Connolly attributed the win to court awareness and just hanging in.

“If you know what’s happening around you and you keep it together and talk a lot, you’ll get the win, and we did,” he said.

ENDS

For further information please contact:

Contact: Chris Nay (General Manager, Wheelchair Rugby Australia)
M: 0405 036 727
chris@wheelchairrugby.com.au

Wayne Hickson (Media Consultant)
M: 0407 028 917
hicksonmedia@gmail.com