In just their third home game of the season on grass, the Wagin boys were set for a competitive game against a younger and faster team and knew it would be a hard game having come off a five-week break.

Wagin was missing key players Kevin Foale, Kevin Beard and Darren Spencer due to injury leading up to the game and captain/coach Dwight Kellow only played half-fit with a knee injury.

The first half started off strong for Wagin with some good mid field run from Allan Anthony and Ben Hodge, linking well together to earn two quick penalty corners to give Wagin early opportunities to score.

It was on the second penalty corner that a deflection from the Riffs goalie fell to Tim Weaver who was cool under pressure and smashed in Wagin’s first goal to take the early lead.

Wagin dominated possession in the first 20 minutes of the game with forward movements being created by Wagin’s rock solid defenders in Kim Hough, Xavier White, Ben Kirk and Sam West. Paul Ward and Ben Hodge were working tirelessly up forward as always with no luck, before Hodge flicked a shot at the right post finding Brenden Hall’s stick who deflected the shot in for Wagin’s second goal.

Wagin continued to work hard all over the ground, Tim Weaver, Dale Lloyd and Bryce Stephens were finding the ball regularly in space and the hard running Allan Anthony was looking like he had a magnet on his stick as he controlled the middle of the field well.

Wagin’s third goal came from some great running down the right side of the field.

Kim Hough and Ben Kirk got the ball up to the wing and then onto Dwight Kellow who smashed a well placed ball to Hall’s stick who banged in Wagin’s third goal to make the score line a healthy 3-0 with only minutes remaining in the first half.

Riffs hit back though with a good save from Wagin goalie Shane Bliss only to see the ball roll slowly back over the line for a fortuitous goal, making the score 3-1 to Wagin at half-time.