The Burleigh Bears survived torrential downpours and the Southport Tigers to pick up a valuable 12-10 win on at Pizzey Park on Saturday night.
This was the most anticipated clash of the weekend and while the closeness of the contest kept the game interesting, it was an error riddled performance by both teams due to the difficult conditions.
Fittingly, the first points came from an error with Southport spilling the ball in their own in goal allowing Casey Lyons to swoop in and score in the 29th minute.
Southport hit back on the stroke of halftime through Hirini Robin who crossed in the corner.
Burleigh took the lead back shortly after the break through Kevin Nilan, but the Tigers drew level once more in the 52nd minute when Ken Hemopo charged over.
The deadlock wasn’t broken until the 67th minute when Tigers captain Tim Cannard was sin-binned for tackle a support player without the ball.
Burleigh slotted the penalty goal to take a two-point lead which proved to be the definitive play.
Cannard had a chance to level the scores after the siren with a penalty attempt from more than 40 metres out, but the kick was waved away and the Bears held on.
Bears big man Francis Veukiso was the stand out, using size and power to break the line on a number of occasions when injected off the bench.
The win means Burleigh leap frog Southport into a share of the competition lead with the Tugun Seahawks, while the Tigers slip to third.
Elsewhere in the Coast-2-Coast Bycroft Cup this weekend the Tugun Seahawks thumped Bilambil 40-18 with Bodie Clarke the star with three tries.
Meanwhile Tweed Heads put Cudgen to the sword with a 56-4 thrashing while Currumbin picked their second win of the season 28-18 over Runaway Bay.
BURLEIGH BEARS 12 (C.Lyons, K. Nilan tries D. Kerr 2 goals) def SOUTHPORT TIGERS 10 (K.Hemopo, H. Robin tries C. Thomas goal) at Pizzey Park
