Canberra Vikings vs Fijian Drua: NRC semi-final match result

damn, what a match! Some really rugged tackling, a tough match and lots of sore bodies in the Nation's capital tonight. Vikings were down 22-Nil at half time, they just couldn't stop making mistakes. Thankfully the errors almost disappeared after oranges and, apart from their scrums were being destroyed, the Vikings started playing solid footy. They had the wind behind them and a sudden three quick converted tries after oranges and it was Drua 22 - Viking 21 with 28 minutes to go. Lucky for the Vikings the Drua scored next but missed the conversion and about the 75min they missed a penalty kick, so 15 odd minutes to go and 6 points down. A dropped ball by a Drua player as clock ticked over 79 mins and then a miracle Vikings try after full time. The Vikings kicker (Lonergan) had been replaced but the gun junior 5/8th N.Lolesio calmly slotted over the (semi-difficult) conversion to win the match for the Vikings. The only time in the whole match that Canberra was ahead was that winning kick. The only spoiler was the ref was really lax in allowing Drua players to go down "injured or laces" after nearly every run of multiple phases in defence (never on attack, strange that!). Time and again when their big men were huffing and puffing, suddenly a bloke would go down. JC wept, about the 30 minute mark the #12 even sat right near where a lineout was due and took off his shoe AND sock while everyone stood like Brown's cows for 3-4 minutes. You wonder why fans get turned off when that sort of rubbish is allowed. #StrongerRefsPlease

Drua were hard done by the ref. Kept the vikings in the game.

Drua choking on this. Thought they had it at half time

Wow Canberra having a shocker. Dropped ball everywhere and terrible kicking. I can see why T.Banks didn't make the WB squad, exciting runner but far too many unnecessary errors. The whole momentum shifted around the 26min mark with Banks kick for the sideline off a penalty. He was about 15m from sideline and 10m from Drua tryline, of course Vikings wanted a lineout maul. Banks stuffed up bigtime and kicked it dead, a horrible stupid U12's error. Fiji Drua scored almost off the next play and the wind basically poured out of the Vikings. About 35 min mark he throws a pass about 5m forward and stuffs up another promising raid. Banks wasn't the only one though, dropped balls and some horrible missed tackles, maybe they all watched the mighty WB last night and picked up WB bad habits or got shockingly smashed in the requiem. And as I type, Viking come out and score 3 tries. Maybe I should continue typing instead of watching. LoL

Go Vikings !