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Argonaut Gold get the chop from Melbourne Axemen
Saturday, May 20, 2006
by Rick Boyd
Perth's Argonaut Gold has suffered its first loss in the 2006 Australian Rugby Shield, going down 30-21 to the Melbourne Axemen in Victoria.
Gold was off its game in hostile conditions under lights in Melbourne and could not match the intensity and aggression of the home side. Melbourne led 20-7 at half time.
Gold was guilty of trying too hard and going too wide too fast, when on occasions the ball would be isolated and fall prey to the physical forward play of the Axemen. The Axemen scored an intercept just before half time when Gold was hot on attack, and the visitors battled to get back into the game.
Gold's points came from tries to Tyler Edwards, Leon Felton and Dwayne Grace with Charlie Norcross kikcing two conversions and Tim Ashman one conversion.
"The Axemen deserved to win, they were the better team," coach DesThornton said fatre the game.
"We didn't have the composure, and we made some silly decisions."
"We dug a bit of a hole for ourselves."
"All credit to them, but we weren;t the same team we've been in our recent games, and we need to learn from that."
The loss means that Gold will now fly to Canberra to play the ACT in the first semi-final.
- P.S. Nice spelling.