Walcha co-coach Barry Hoy says the Rams were their own worst enemies as they fell to their second loss of the season on Saturday, and is confident it will come together again.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
One of, if not the, premiership favourites, the Rams just couldn't find their rhythm against a tenacious Narrabri and were subsequently beaten 22-20 after the Blue Boars kicked a penalty on the bell to seal the points.
It was somewhat ironic that it was a penalty that sealed the Rams' fate in what was a see-sawing tussle, with illdiscipline one of their biggest faults.
They finished the game with only 14 after Ross Fletcher was binned for the indiscretion that led to that final penalty. Skipper Simon Newton also spent 10 in the bin, earlier in the half, after a stream of penalties from the Rams.
That was compounded by their inability to consistently hold the ball for longer than five or six phases.
"Any time we'd get territory we'd give away a penalty or knock it on, and then just couldn't get any momentum going, any flow going. That cost us - first half and second half," Hoy said.
Leading 8-3 at half-time, Dom Bower finished off a scintillating 50m effort to extend the Rams' advantage to 12 almost straight off the kick-off.
After a scrum around half-way, Newton held up the ball and found outside centre Ed Cordingley on the burst. Attracting two defenders Cordingley got an offload away to Bower, and a few sets of hands and 35m later he was in in the corner.
Hoy conceded he thought things might "click into gear" after that but they never did.
They were rarely in their 22 again until Henry Leslie crossed from a sneaky lineout play with around five minutes remaining to put them back in front.
"We kept probably just rushing things a little bit," he said.
He put that in part down to a bit of rustiness. They virtually hadn't played for three weeks with the long weekend general bye and then their scheduled bye following that.
The moment that probably summed that up, Hoy said, was "when Dom (Bower) was in a gap there and dropped the ball".
"He'll catch those 99 out of 100," he said.
The Blue Boars to their credit too did play a smart game in the second half.
"They played tactically pretty well with the breeze in the second half, kicked deep and kept us pinned there," Hoy said.
"(But) I think it'll be right once we get in back going again."
Lachlan Brown, Bower and Leslie were their best, the latter making some strong charges in the first half.
They will have to quickly iron things out with some tough games coming up.
After Inverell this weekend, they host Pirates, then after Quirindi, face Moree, who usurped them on top of the table.