ILLAWARRA RUGBY
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Camden coach Brendon Schoupp spared a thought for his vanquished adversary after the Rams knocked Avondale out of the premiership race with a 28-22 victory in Saturday's final at Ocean Park.
Avondale tasted defeat just once during the regular season, only to crash and burn with consecutive losses in the post-season.
They also played in five of the past six grand finals, yet captured just a single title.
Pleased as he was to steer the reigning champions back to the grand final, Schoupp empathised with Wombats coach James Patrick, one of Illawarra rugby's genuine nice guys.
"As coaches, we all know each other and James is a good bloke and I do feel for him," Schoupp said.
"He puts a lot of time and effort into the club and helped build the club. He'd be frustrated. Avondale go really well and for whatever reason this sort of thing happens, but they've still had a good year and he'd be pretty proud, and so he should be."
The typically unflappable Patrick kept the loss in perspective.
"We just had too many dropped balls," he said.
"I told the boys to keep their heads up. It wasn't through lack of effort. Everyone tried very hard."
Running into a breeze in the first half, Avondale took a 3-0 lead with Jo Aiono's penalty goal before hooker Dave Gleeson scored for the Rams as a result of a driving maul.
Flanker Mark Nightingale went over for Camden minutes later and Lee Russell's conversion made it 12-3.
A Russell penalty goal stretched the lead to 15-3 before Avondale cut it to 15-8 with winger Eli Sinoti's try in the final seconds of the first half.
Wombats' fullback Scott Morgan scored under the posts early in the second half and Aiono's conversion tied the score at 15-all.
Russell's penalty broke the deadlock and Jake Sadler's try in the corner pushed Camden's lead out to 23-15.
Avondale weren't done, trimming the deficit to a point with Andre Itula's converted try.
The Rams turned up the defensive intensity over the final eight minutes and finished with a bang as lock Tim Windle scored a try in the dying moments.
Camden meet University in this Saturday's grand final at WIN Stadium.
"We executed really well in the first half and we were controlling the game pretty well, but to Avondale's credit they came back and had some good passages," Schoupp said.
"It's our defence that has turned our season around. Our attitude in defence and trust in the person next to us, that was seen there today. We held our nerve really well towards the end and didn't panic."
The Wombats were left to ponder another season of unfulfilled promise.
"We gave ourselves a chance and were still in with a shot at the end, but it wasn't to be," Patrick said.