Southcity holds off late Gundagai rally to extend winning streak

The Bulls replaced an undermanned Gundagai in the top three after an 18-12 victory at Harris Park on Sunday.

It's their fifth straight win this season after holding off a late rally from the Tigers.

The Bulls looked to be in control when they went out to an 18-6 lead, and had a numerical advantage with Jared Elphick in the sin bin, but the Tigers kept coming.

Not only did Caleb Piper's second sideline conversion in the first grade debut get Gundagai within six points with six minutes to play.

The Tigers had a number of opportunities, including having Wilson Hamblin drought down inches from the line, but the Bulls had the answer to extend their streak.

Coach Cleve McGhie was pleased to bring up another win.

"It doesn't matter how we get it done as long as we get it done, but we did make it a bit harder than we probably needed to at the back end of the game," McGhie said.

"That happens and we had the resilience to hang tough as they had a few cracks at our line to finish it off.

"With only six points the difference we needed to hang tough in defence and I think we'll be learn some resilience off the back of it."

Gundagai dominated possession early but it was Southcity who got on the board first as Brody Tracey made a break before putting McGhie into open space to score.

McGhie and Royce Tout were then sin binned after the Bulls coach reacted to a Tout tackle after play had been stopped for a forward pass.

Gundagai were able to capitalise in that period as James Morgan scored against his former club.

However it was Southcity who took an 8-6 lead into half-time when Joel Tracey charged over five minutes out from the break.

Southcity extended their advantage through two Kyle McCarthy penalty goals before taking advantage of Elphick's sin binning as Brody Tracey stretched out to score.

It didn't deter the Tigers who set up the right finish when Eparama Navuki crossed in the corner with eight to play.

The Tigers had a number of chances late to try to level things but couldn't find a way through the Bulls defence.

The loss sees them drop to fourth on the ladder at the midway point of the season.

Southcity are now in third ahead of a clash with ladder leaders Young at Equex Centre

The two teams played out a draw to start the season with McGhie disappointed to see Young suffer their first loss of the season.

"The last however many (wins) means nothing if we don't go on and get the job done next week," McGhie said.

"It was a bit disappointing to know Young got beat yesterday, it would have been nice to be first to try to pick them off but we will go back to the drawing board this week, look at Young and see what we need to fix from our performance today and hopefully we can turn up here again next week and defend Harris Park."

Closing out games is something McGhie feels the side needs to work on, especially after missing out on a few opportunities to really make Gundagai pay late in the second half.

"When we're up like that at 18-6 I think we need to have a bit more patience just to hold the ball," he said.

"We know teams are going to try to pull out, have hands in the ruck when we're playing the ball.

"We just have to have a bit more patience and start closing out games as there's no reason why we shouldn't have kicked on to 20 something or 30 something points but it is what it is and we hung tough and got the job done."