Both the Armidale Rams and Uralla Tigers suffered heavy defeats at home and both results have had dramatic effects on their semi-final aspirations.

The Rams have fallen out of the top four for the first time this season after a 66-36 thumping at the hands of the Moree Boomerangs.

Being the only side to defeat the Boomerangs this season failed to count for much for Armidale on Saturday as Moree ran riot in the second half.

It was the Rams who opened the scoring through star hooker Jamie Smith, but the Boomerangs answered almost immediately to open the floodgates.

The Boomerangs led 34-16 at half time and things didn’t get much better for the Rams in the second stanza.

Moree scored six second half tries to run out to a big 66-36 win.

Rams’ president Terry Carson said Armidale played better than the score-line reflected.

“It wasn’t as bad as the score-line suggests,” he said.

“They got on a roll on and we weren’t good enough to stop it.

“They scored some lucky tries as well, but you have to expect that with the Rangs.”

The Boomerangs are heavy premiership favourites and showed just why on Saturday.

“It wasn’t a bad performance from us,” Carson said.

“We hung in until the end.

“We were just a step behind the whole time.

“Without doubt they are competition favourites.”

Armidale gets a rest this weekend with the bye and will use it to prepare for the run into the finals.

“We have to get better if we want to play semi-final football,” Carson said.

“I’m still confident we can get there.

“It’s not a bad time to have the bye either, we’ve got a few blokes carrying injuries.”

Meanwhile, Uralla stuck it with Glen Innes for two-thirds of the match, but faltered late to suffer a 44-6 loss.

“It was a good tussle for a while,” coach Carl Press said.

“They were just a little but too experienced late in the game.”

An undermanned Tigers outfit found themselves trailing 14-nil after 20 minutes, but rebounded to be only trailing 14-6 at the break, courtesy of a fantastic try to winger Sam Press.

The Tigers continued to stick it to Glen Innes in the opening exchanges of the second half, but the big Magpie pack were too strong for a Tiger side missing big guns Alistair Faulkner, Jordan Press and Fletcher Strong.

“We were missing a few, but we can’t use that as an excuse,” he said.

“It was a good hard tussle.

“Everyone played well across the board. Glen’s experience and size was a bit much in the end.”