THE off-season break has done nothing to sap the winning ways of the Easts Tigers FOGS Cup side, with last years premiership-winning side starting off the new season with three straight wins.
Coach Scott Sipple said it was easy for his side to refocus their attention for the new season, with new players keen to reproduce that success and deal with the added motivation other teams would bring into the games.
What happened last year was a great achievement by that group of players, he said. This season, we have a whole new core group of players who are working just as hard to reach the same goal.
We have high expectations on ourselves here at Easts so we dont need to worry about other team expectations. Our goal each week is to go out and compete and so far we are doing that.
Despite having beaten this weekends opponents the Souths Logan Magpies 26-18 in round 1 Sipple who played 196 games for the Tigers said the side had to work incredibly hard to win that game.
He also pointed out there were still areas of the game his side needed to work on to continue improving each week.
In round 1, Souths had us down 18-4 at halftime and we only sealed the win in the last five minutes, so there is no chance we will be taking them lightly, he said.
This will be the fourth week for us travelling on the road and they are very hard to beat at home.
Our defence is okay at the moment, but our attack is below par.
We have had a number of changes in key positions which have affected our attack, so this is one area we will be working on.
The Tigers and Magpies will play a later game at 3.45pm, with the Womens Interstate Challenge match to be played between the FOGS Colts and Intrust Super Cup games.
In the FOGS Colts competition the Toowoomba Clydesdales secured their first win of the season, galloping away to a 40-18 win over Souths Logan at Gold Park last Saturday. Corey Langton and Kabunare Kofe both scored twice for the home side, while Magpie Ryland Smith also did well to score a double.
The Sunshine Coast and Wynnum continued their promising early season form with another win each, while the Ipswich Jets earned their seasons first points courtesy of a 22-22 draw with Easts Tigers.
This weekend the Jets will face an imposing test when they travel to BMD Kougari to take on the undefeated Wynnum Manly, while Tweed Heads will be hoping to secure their second win of the season when they play the Tigers at Runaway Bay before the Bycroft Cup action kicks off at the ground.
