A potentially season-ending quadriceps injury to Terry Campese capped a miserable outing for the Queanbeyan Blues against a Steven Ferry-inspired Woden Rams on Sunday.
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Captain Ferry's first career double helped orchestrate a stirring 52-30 comeback win in a match where the defending-premier Blues finished with no fit troops on the bench.
Young prop Bradley Buckley will also miss the rest of the season after re-injuring his right ankle, while Joshua Hitchins was forced off with a hamstring injury.
"I was standing right behind him when he [Buckley] did it, it sounded pretty bad," Campese said.
"We were just out of troops in the end. We had no one left on the bench, everyone was injured.
"I don't know how many we'll have next week, big game against the [Gungahlin] Bulls at Seiffert. As long as we can get out there and have a run around, we'll probably have to bring a few up from reserve grade which we did in the first few weeks we only had 13 players and the rest of our bench came from reggies."
Campese had the ball on a string for the Blues before being forced from the field, scoring a try himself and setting up three more.
Queanbeyan led 20-6 late in the first half before Daine Spencer crashed over to give the Rams a sniff.
Ferry took charge after the main break, crashing over from close range for his first early in the second half, before doubling up 13 minutes later.
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"First one was a bit of a fluke, the hooker got stuck so I filled in, couldn't see the halfback and decided 'bugger it I'm going myself' and went over, which was good," Ferry said.
"The second one I just ran a line, heavens opened and through I went.
"We were down by a few. I said one simple word at half-time which was 'completions' and they came out and did that.
"All we needed to do was complete, we knew it. We knew we had their number and just went out there, completed and got the wood over them."
The result leaves the Blues, Woden and Gungahlin with two wins apiece behind the ladder-leading Canberra Raiders under-20s, who lost to the Bulls on Saturday.
"We saw that result and said at the start of the game that the season's on the line here and we had to get that win to stay in contention and now we did," Ferry said.
"It's a very tight competition and every game counts."
AT A GLANCE
Canberra Raiders Cup round 6: Woden Valley Rams 52 (S Ferry 2, D Spencer 2, S Swanson, D Desmet, L Ingram, T Jones, M Geiger tries, B Robertson 8 goals) bt Queanbeyan Blues 30 (C Ale 3, T Campese, A Barlow tries, T Campese 5 goals).
Katrina Fanning Shield round 6: Queanbeyan Blues 22 (K Dragisic 2, S Allan, C Johnson tries, S Wood 3 goals) d Bushpies 20 (K Huey, S Afele, E Winbank, E Masi tries, E Blowes, E Ernst goals).
James Buckley
James is a Queanbeyan boy enjoying his second stint at the Canberra Times, more than eight years on from his first. In between he's traveled the world, and spent time covering sport in Sydney.
James is a Queanbeyan boy enjoying his second stint at the Canberra Times, more than eight years on from his first. In between he's traveled the world, and spent time covering sport in Sydney.
