The star power of Nicholas Cornish was at its brightest on Saturday, as he bookended the Goulburn Dirty Reds' matches with the first try in reserve grade and the final try in first grade.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
With three additional scores in between, Cornish's haul of five tries in two matches led the Dirty Reds to a pair of heavy wins over ADFA at Goulburn's Poidevin Oval.
Following the Goulburn women's gritty defeat at the hands of the Tuggeranong Viqueens earlier in the day, the senior men took to the field against ADFA determined to continue their two-match winning streaks.
Reserve grade started first, and the plethora of young talent introduced into the side this season immediately began to make their mark.
Cornish got things underway with a try in the opening minutes thanks to his ridiculous footspeed. After ADFA replied with a try of its own, Cornish quickly followed up with another thanks to an assist from his older brother, Mitchell.
The first half continued in a back-and-forth manner as the visitors refused to back down, leading to a 21-17 scoreline at the break.
But the beginning of the second half heralded a renewed onslaught from the Dirty Reds, who scored 33 unanswered points (including two more tries from Cornish) to claim a 54-17 win.
Goulburn head coach, Mik Webber, was thrilled to see such resounding performances from the Dirty Reds' young and upcoming players.
"They're such a young side, so for them to grind out a first half like that and then come home, that's a real positive for a young side like that to play that sort of footy," Webber said.
"They're well ahead of where I thought they would be."
The first graders took to the field shortly afterwards, and though ADFA scrapped hard in the opening minutes, there was little that could stop the Dirty Reds, who had finally found the fluency for which they had been searching in the first two rounds.
"Today's the sort of footy we hoped to play all year. I think we clicked today more than we have, so that was really positive," Webber said.
"We want to launch our season from today. We want to keep going from here, and if we do that, I'm confident both teams can come home with a bit of silverware."
Like reserve grade, the first graders started relatively slowly, and led 14-7 at the break. But their fitness and attacking variety led to a further 19 unanswered points in the second half, for a 33-7 scoreline by the final horn.
Though both scorelines look bleak for the visitors, Webber said the results were more a reflection of how well Goulburn played.
"We expected them to be fast around the park, hard at the ball and to throw the ball around, which they did," he said.
"I think we counteracted them pretty well, especially through our forwards. We shut them down pretty well and then our backs did a good job."
Cornish was one of several successful first grade debutants for the Dirty Reds, and the sheer volume of talent Goulburn currently has available left Webber excited for the future.
"The Cornish boys are quality players, and they've proven that," Webber said.
"It was good to get him [Nicholas] on [in first grade] today. I think it's great we also had Harry Newby, Will Mooney come on, we had a lot of young players from reserve grade come on. That was really encouraging, the future looks bright for us."
The Dirty Reds men have a bye this weekend, and will next take on RMC at Duntroon on August 15.
While you're with us...
Did you know the Goulburn Post is now offering breaking news alerts and a weekly email newsletter? Keep up-to-date with all the local news: sign up here.
