Points Penalty Primes Denman For Pre-season Test

Newcastle Herald

Friday April 23, 2004

Craig Kerry - Up the Valley

DENMAN must beat Muswellbrook by 11 points tomorrow at Aberdeen to earn the right to play Singleton in the Group 21 rugby league pre-season final after they were docked two points for fielding an unregistered player.

Group 21 secretary Rob Lowrie said the club had accepted the penalty from the 30-18 win against Aberdeen on Sunday gracefully.

Muswellbrook and Denman would have been locked in equal second going into tomorrow's game, but Denman must now win and finish with a better for-and-against record to make the final.

Singleton finished undefeated in the Group 21 pre-season competition after a hard-fought 18-12 win against Scone on Sunday.

Scone and Aberdeen play in the other game.

The senior and under-21 finals will be held at Aberdeen next Sunday.

Tamworth recruit Rod Nyman's stellar season for Muswellbrook cricket champions Workers Club was recognised at the association's awards presentation.

Nyman was named Muswellbrook's cricketer of the year despite missing out on the A-grade player of the year award, which is based on a points system determined by runs and wickets.

Valley Souths all-rounder John Shaw won that award.

Nyman claimed the runs aggregate with 509, took the most catches with 14 and was named representative player of the year.

It capped a season which included two centuries during the regular season and a crucial half-century in the low-scoring final victory against Valley Souths.

Valley Souths bowler Larry Van Vliet was the leading wicket-taker with 37.

Group 21 rugby league coach David Madden was frustrated by what appeared to be sour grapes in preparations for last Saturday's Northern Divisional trials at Tamworth.

A string of players who were called up after original selections withdrew through injury and work commitments decided to pull out themselves.

Madden indicated the withdrawals could have been a case of players being unhappy that they were not in the original line-up.

Thoroughbred breeding entrepreneur John Messara should be proud of his contribution to the record Australian Easter Yearling Sales at Randwick this month.

Messara moulded Arrowfield Stud at Scone and has been a huge influence on the booming Hunter Valley stud industry.

Messara had a hand, directly or indirectly, in seven yearlings sold in the $1million to $2.2million range during the sale.

Four of them, including the record $2.2million colt bought from Coolmore Stud, are by Danehill.

Messara flew the sire out from Ireland for Arrowfield for the first time in 1990.

© 2004 Newcastle Herald

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