Cowra Magpies defeat Blayney Bears to make 2023 reserve grade grand final

Lack of player numbers due to rival clubs and a struggle to attract people to Cowra forced their hand in March.

Six months later and the Magpies are in the reserve grade grand final after defeating Blayney Bears 44-20 at Glen Willow on Saturday, September 2.

Captain Will Ingram was emotional at full-time as he praised his teammates for sticking with the club.

"Every bloke in the team is a local junior," he said.

"No one travels to play, everyone is there because we couldn't see our club fold. We put our hands up and we've all sacrificed a lot to get ourselves here.

"I'm really proud of them. I couldn't ask for a better bunch of blokes to be running out alongside.

"It's going to be massive for the town. There will be black and white fever all week."

Cowra ran in eight tries to four in hot conditions in Mudgee to leave the premiership favourites 70 minutes away from completing a dominant season.

The Magpies lost just twice in 2023, one of which was at the hands of Blayney at Sid Kallas Oval back in round two.

Ingham said they had learned to hang in there and wanted the exact same from his troops next week.

"That was absolutely beautiful," he said.

"It's something that we worked very hard on especially in the last eight weeks to build into a performance like that. It's something special.

"We were close to flawless for 60 minutes but in saying that, next week will be a step-up in class so we really need to soak it in but also keep our mind set on the job at hand.

"That was probably one of our worst games of the year when we played Blayney at home. We knew we had more in us.

"When we went back over and played them in Blayney and did what we did today.

"We weathered the storm, completed our sets, pushed with our mates and we put points on. That's exactly what we'll be focusing on for next week."

Cowra will face Dubbo CYMS in the grand final on Sunday, September 10.

Reading this on mobile web? Download our news app. It's faster, easier to read and we'll send you alerts for breaking news as it happens. Download in the Apple Store or Google Play.