Popular player Dan Murphy was honoured by his former club Medowie and current club Nelson Bay for what was his last game of footy at his old stomping ground of Boyd Oval.
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The Bay ran out 32-0 winners against the Marauders but in a tremendous gesture, Murphy was chaired from the ground by his former teammates Medowie captain Eric Tolhurst and Sam Ellul.
After a long career at Medowie, Murphy moved across to play with the Gropers and was part of their 2023 Hunter Suburban premiership team.
His Nelson Bay teammates from New Zealand gave a stirring rendition of the haka as a show of respect from the Bay for Dan's wonderful footy career which the Nelson Bay faithful will be hoping ends in another premiership.
The Gropers were pleased to finally get back on the field after a number of washouts and ran in six tries in their bonus point win which lifts them to second on the ladder on 37 points, three points behind Singleton Red.
it was a good day for the club with a depleted women's team winning 22-10 over Southern Beaches at Gateshead.
The men's game was a physical encounter, the opening stanza saw rugged defence from both teams despite the wet conditions.
However, the slick Groper backline looked sharp as halves Jack Ballard and Khace Petera went to work and gave good service to the hard running centre pairing of Michael Hotene who scored one try and Willy Dunn who scored a double.
The Bay's hard working forward pack made valuable ground throughlocks Lewis Affleck and John Lundie.
Back rowers Ryan Marshall, Mitch Workman and Ronan O'Connell also created plenty of forward momentum charging into the Maruaders defence.
At the break, coach Michael Wiringi used an injection of fresh players to ramp up the attack with flanker Sam Rocher making several long runs and bruising defence upped the tempo of the game.
Tough prop Nathan Perry and veteran half back Murphy had fine games.
Club points: 3 Lewis Affleck; 2 Sam Rocher and 1 Ryan Marshall.
The Nelson Bay women went into their match down on troops and Southern Beaches were up for the challenge,
The bay showed plenty of pace out wide with centres Tash Harris and Emjay Walters and fullback Tanya Jones all scoring tries
It was a tough grind in the middle with the forwards all working hard to keep the Bay on the front foot.
Club points: 3 hooker Jade Brown; 2 No8 Taylor Rich; 1 Emjay Walters.
The men are away to the Cooks Hill Brown Snakes, with second place up for grabs, at 3.00pm, the women follow at 4.30pm.
