It was a five-star performance by Robbie Farah, who was simply outstanding in the Wests Tigers 39-14 domination over the Wentworthville Magpies at Campbelltown Stadium.
Farah scored a try, kicked a field goal and was involved in many more, earning him the Intrust Super Premiership NSW man of the match award, despite the fact he went off the field concussed in the second half.
He was not alone in scintillating individual performances, with the entire backline and halves surpassing their usual roles to run rings around the red-hot Magpies.
The match began with a classy offload from Farah catching out the defence and forcing an eventual penalty.
Off the ensuing set, Justin Hunt put a nice little grubber in that looked like it was going to be too big, however Chee Kam showed his inner-Ben Barba to somehow drag the ball from outside the field of play and plant the ball down just millimetres short of the dead ball line.
Farah showed his pure class for the Wests Tigers next four-pointer, when Hunt broke through a tackle and got away an amazing offload to the 247-game veteran, who then put in a perfect kick for Josh Addo-Carr to win the race to the ball and plant it down.
Farah did it all himself soon after when he darted out of dummy half, forced the defence to change direction, but it was too late, as the smart hooker sliced through a manufactured hole to score the Wests Tigers third.
Honeti Tuha finally crossed the line for the Magpies under the posts, but after an in-depth discussion with his touch judge, the Wests Tigers were given a penalty.
The Magpies eventually got their first try when Cody Nelson somehow got a grubber away whilst getting dragged down, before the ball bounced up perfectly in the hands of Scott Schulte to reduce the deficit to 16-4.
Farah capped off a brilliant first half by slotting a 30-metre goal on the buzzer.
The Wests Tigers surrendered a huge 28-6 half-time lead two weeks ago at the same ground, but they weren’t about to repeat that as just three minutes into the second half, Cherrington sparked an Addo-Carr runaway try to extend their lead to 23-4.
The Magpies hit straight back thanks again to Nelson, who drifted across the field, hit the defence and popped a ball out the back for Jake Butler-Fleming, who ran through a large hole to score.
During the try, Farah had to be assisted off the field due to a concussion, and got a warm applause from the Campbelltown faithful.
Chee Kam made a huge mid-field run in the 54th minute, evading defenders and breaking through tackles with ease. He then finished off the set by crashing over with two defenders on his back to score his second try of the afternoon.
One of the hits of the season followed, as Chance Peni made a linebreak against the run of play, but was completely blindsided by Roydon Gillett who absolutely rattled him. To Peni’s credit, he wasn’t held, and he got up and kept running up-field.
The Wests Tigers wrapped up the match thanks to the unsurprising star of the day, Farah – who was back on the field - when he double-pumped, then threw a perfect floating pass to Addo-Carr, who dived in the left corner for his third try of the afternoon.
Farah was involved yet again for the final try of the day to Jackson Williams, which means the Wests Tigers will maintain their top four position at the end of the round with that dominant 39-14 performance.
