The Canberra club has survived a sudden-death play-off away to University of Technology Sydney (UTS) with a convincing victory yesterday, 25:19 (12:11 at the break). Canberra will now face arch rivals Sydney University for a spot in this year’s League final.

Having already lost to UTS at home in round 5 (33:25), Canberra was in trouble early in the game. Missing three key backs, who were out with illness, Canberra had to make last minute changes to their defence in an attempt to shut-down the League’s top scorer Fabian Synneby. The Swedish national caused all sorts of trouble in the first half, scoring five goals and leading with assists to keep the pressure on Canberra.

As expected, the match got heated very quickly with tempers flaring several times. The referees gave out a total six yellow cards, 12 two-minutes suspensions and a red card to keep the players in control but two minutes before the break, an accidental head clash between Daniel Doering and UTS left back Ognjen Matic sent both players to the blood-bin.

A heavily bandaged Doering came back into the game, in the second half, to inflict more damage to UTS as Canberra continued to fight for control of the game.

The teams went goal-for-goal up until the last ten minutes of the game, when Synneby scored his seventh goal, to equalize for UTS at 19 all.

Canberra then put on the performance of the season to shut-down UTS, refusing to concede another goal. Whilst UTS struggled to score, Canberra captain, Rob Lans, stepped up to contribute four more goals, to his tally of nine. Lans added to a six-zero scoring run that sent his team into the League semi-final.

Next Saturday, at Olympic Park in Sydney, Canberra meets Sydney Uni and Harbourside will come up against Hills, in a one-off chance to make the League final.