Ghosts season comes to an end

Roberts-Davis had little trouble knocking over the conversion.

The Ghosts hit back within minutes when the Nambucca defence hesitated under a bomb from half Cooper Woods.

The kick lacked depth, but the Roosters defence allowed Ghosts winger Billy Kilduff to catch the ball on the full.

He stepped inside one tackler and passed to Ghosts centre Dylan Collett.

The big No 3, who has captained the side in recent weeks, had plenty to do.

He stepped a defend, spun in the tackle of another and palmed off a third to crash over about 12m to the left of the uprights. Woods nailed the conversion and with the score locked at 6-6 the crowd settled in for a contest.

But it was a contest that failed to eventuate.

Within minutes the Roosters snatched the lead back and it was never challenged. Simons scored a second try, a carbon copy of the frst as weak right edge defence allowed him to punch through tackles and score about 10m to the left of the posts. Roberts Davis converted..

The Roosters next score had an element of luck to it.

The Ghosts charged down a Nambucca kick, but it fell into space and players hacked it ahead.

A Nambucca player picked up the ball as play neared the left corner and popped a pass to winger Beau Langford, who crashed over in the corner as a crowd of Ghosts defenders tried to force him over the sideline.

Roberts-Davis smacked the sideline conversion through the sticks to give Nambucca a handy 18-6 lead with halftime approaching.

But the Ghosts couldn’t hold out.

As the crowd waited for the half-time siren, the Roosters were in again, for the frst time attacking the right side of the feld.

A delightful fick pass in traffc found winger Mitchell Whitelaw steaming onto the ball. The Ghosts defence hit him hard, but as he headed into touch he reached out and placed the ball over the line, stretching the Nambucca lead to 22-6.

The Ghosts looked to have hit back in the dying seconds of the half when the Ghosts chased a kick into the left corner.

The ball bounced into the hands of Collett, who touched down, but the referee ruled a knock on both ways and blew for half time.

The Ghosts gave their supporters a glimmer of hope early in the second half when winger Liam Bloomer scored in the left corner.

The Ghosts had been attacking and had stretched the Nambucca defence and when Woods placed a teasing kick into the right corner, it was touch and go if the chasers could gather it in.

Bloomer never gave up and grabbed the ball centimetres from the touch in goal and slammed it down for a try.

Woods conversion attempt from the sideline hit the crossbar and bounced out.

From then to the end of the game Nambucca dominated, even when their half Tyrone Roberts Davis was sin-binned for repeated play the ball infringements, Nambucca’s live wire lock forward Paul Bell notched a double and in the fnal minutes of the game the Rooster treated the crowd to a couple of long range specials.

First Sines picked up an intercept In his own half and race 50m down the right wing. When the cover caught him, he pushed away from a couple of tackles and scored in the corner.

Roberts Davis nailed a superb sideline conversion.

With two minutes left and trying to snatch something to fnish their season on some sort of a high, Woods kicked ahead into the Nambucca quarter.

But it backfred badly. The ball bounced into the arms of fullback Robert Smith who sprinted into the clear and outpaced the defence on an 80m run to the tryline.

Grafton coach and player Adam Slater did not want to talk to the press after the loss. While clearly distraught his team had bowed out out in the fnals, he had not left anything out there.

On the feld he tackled and ran with purpose and throughout the season he extracted the best from a team that lacked the strike power across the feld the other top teams possessed.

Apart from Collett, who was one of the season’s leading try scorers, few Ghosts players offered a consistent threat.

At the end of the season, the statistics counted. Despite fnishing third on the ladder, the Ghosts had a decisively negative for and against record.

And in their fnal game, it came home to haunt them.