With blistering heat and a great crowd the scene was set for a great afternoon of footy.

The Goldies were missing a few experience players. 

Brad Gross was back in uniform and watching from the sideline. 

Justin Fleming, got married in Coonamble.

Congrats mate.

All the best for the future, Ryan Simpson was bogged out in Frogmore and Dougal Kelly was lost in the hills of Rugby.

None the less the Goldies managed to muster up eighteen players, four coaches equipped with UHF radios who wouldn’t have looked out of place as security guards at a Ed Sheeran concert.

The Goldie’s started off to a flying start with a great break from Jye up the right wing to put Brendan Madden over the line.

Which was beautifully converted by Greeny who had to take a quick drop kick as the wind blew it off the tee.

For the rest of the evening we made hard work of things.

Hands letting us down for at least two certain tries.

Yass also had the dominant scrum which was always going to make things hard.

Yass’s size seemed to have made the difference.

The forwards never seemed to click and it was disappointing as the last few training sessions have been really productive.

However, it is a trial game and its now we want to make mistakes if we are going to make some.

It’s also a good time for the coaches to have a look at different combinations and positions.

Although the result didn’t go the Goldies way there is a lot that can be taken from the game.

However, there was some good individual performance.

Jye Patterson was simply on fire.

Anytime he got the ball he broke at least the first tackle.

It will be great to see him in full swing this year.

Deputy Lord Mayor of Gunnary Pool (Jeremy Dreverman) like always worked tirelessly all afternoon, he also celebrated his 36 birthday on Monday.

Happy birthday mate.

Tom Simson made some monster tackles and saved a few certain tries.

Tim Grogery carried forward all day like a man processed.

After 12 years on the sideline a slightly overweight/hairy Irishman eventually decided to lace up the boots and made an appearance for 15 minutes.

He came on at hooker, a position he never knew existed and walked around not achieving much.

It is yet to be found out who he is or what his name is but runours after the game is he is known as the “Good Flemo”.

I have to agree.

This week’s honourable mention has to go to the coaches, training staff and high-performance coach David Corcoran.

Oh my god, you should have seen them, all wired up with UHF’s.

At one stage one spectator asked me if it was the Rugby World Cup Final.

Imagine what technology they will roll out once the comp kicks off. Mully didn’t have a UHF.

Overall when all is said and done it was a good hit out in challenging conditions.

Not the result we wanted but plenty of learnings.

The best result of the weekend was the Irish beating the English in the Six Nations to claim the grand slam.

There is nothing better in life than beating the English… At anything… However, it being on St Patric’ks Day made it even sweeter.

The Goldies play Harden in a trial game this Saturday in Harden.

Get across and support the boys.