MELBOURNE Rebels borrowed the game plan from England’s shock World Cup elimination of Australia to ensure Victoria could complete a clean-sweep of all Australia’s national football competitions.
The Rebels advanced to the inaugural Australian Rugby Championship final against the Central Coast Rays in Gosford next Sunday with a 23-3 upset win over minor premier Western Sydney Rams at Parramatta Stadium today.
Melbourne scored three tries and for the second week running kept its own line intact.
The result gave the Rebels a quick chance to avenge the 55-7 shellacking they suffered from the Rays in Melbourne just two weeks ago.
Melbourne and former Wallabies forward Matt Cockbain revealed the Rebels had based their strategy for today’s game on England’s committed effort in their 12-10 World Cup quarter-final victory over Australia.
"After watching the Wallabies last night and watching England come out and out-enthuse them, that’s something we took into to today," man-of-the-match Cockbain said.
"We are not the most talented group, but we have a go and rip in, we’ve got a pretty good culture.
"We’ve worked hard on our defence and the last two weeks we haven’t had a try scored against us, that’s a big feather in the boys’ cap after being touched up by the Rays a couple of weeks ago."
The Rebels led 12-3 at half-time following tries to lock Richard Stanford and centre James Lew.
The Rams’ much-vaunted backline made few impressions on the visitors’ watertight defence and Melbourne sealed its win early in the second half.
Wallabies wing Digby Ioane displayed terrific speed and footwork to leave two Rams in his wake as he charged to a brilliant solo try.
Centre Jack Farrer added one conversion and two penalties, while the Rams’ only score was a single penalty to wing Ben Martin.
With Wallabies hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau and lock Van Humphries both injured last week, the Rams struggled in the lineout.
"It let us down at crucial times, it’s been one of our strengths all year, our lineout, so that was very disappointing and we had trouble recycling quick phase ball," Rams lock Ben Hand said.
The Rebels now have the chance to complete Victoria’s domination of the national footballing competitions following title wins by Geelong in the AFL, Melbourne Storm in the rugby league and Melbourne Victory in soccer.
The Rays advanced to the final yesterday with a 27-19 home win over Perth.
Central Coast trailed 16-0 at the break, but with the breeze behind them, rallied to score three tries with fullback Peter Hewat contributing 17 points.
AAP
Source: foxsports.com.au
