VIKINGS refuse to let the finals flame be extinguished.
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As Kiama and Bowral prepare face-off for fourth, the Wollongong club showed it is anything but a spent force by beating University 24-17 on Saturday.
The game was shifted to University Oval after a patch of the Vikings playing surface was unplayable. While they gave up home ground advantage, they refused to concede the result with a determined tackling effort.
“Uni fought really hard, but we defended well,” coach Sean Barrett said.
“They’re a great team, but the way we played, we just never really let them find their feet. It’s an important win, we know we’ve just got to keep winning and see where it leaves us, but everyone is really excited about the challenge.”
Vikings led 21-7, before a penalty goal with 25 minutes remaining put the result seemingly beyond doubt.
However, Uni stormed back with two tries and denied a couple of other scoring opportunities.
Prop and captain Joel Diggins, halfback Tom Sawden and centres Dane Nethery and Liam Antrobus were among the Vikings standouts.
“We had a couple out and needed to bring guys up from second grade,” Barrett said.
“But it was a really good performance considering we had to shuffle a couple of players around.
“We’ve been playing reasonably well without being consistent, so it was pleasing we played this one out.
“Especially after we moved the game over there. There were a couple of patches at Vikings where you just couldn’t pack a scrum, so we moved it to Uni and we could have walked into an ambush.”
Bowral kept their hold on fourth place with a 29-13 win over Camden, while Kiama maintained the pressure on them with a 26-10 victory over Shoalies.
But Bowral and Kiama meet twice in the last three weeks, with a wash out catch-up round still to be played next weekend.
If they split their victories and Vikings can beat Camden twice and high-flying arch-rivals Shamrocks on the run home, the finals race could be blown wide open.
Shamrocks inflicted more pain on Tech-Waratahs with a ruthless 116-0 demolition job.
ILLAWARRA RUGBY
Round 16
KIAMA 26 d SHOALHAVEN 10, BOWRAL 29 d CAMDEN 13, AVONDALE 53 d CAMPBELLTOWN 19, SHAMROCKS 116 d TECH-WARATAHS 0, VIKINGS 24 d UNIVERSITY 17
Ladder: AVONDALE 69, SHAMROCKS 66, UNIVERSITY 56, BOWRAL 47, Kiama 46, Vikings 39, Camden 24, Shoalhaven 23, Campelltown 22, Tech-Waratahs 2.