A stellar defensive display saw the Burleigh Bears hold off the Souths Logan Magpies 20-6 at Pizzey Park on Saturday.
With rain pouring down for the entire game it was never going to be a free-flowing game of rugby league, but the Bears managed to tough it out in defence.
The Magpies had plenty of possession and spent a large part of the game attacking Burleigh’s line, but the Bears wouldn’t let them through and frustrated them out of the contest.
“Defence generally is a big indicator of your attitude and today it was spot on,” Bears coach Jim Lenihan said after the game.
“Defence is all about attitude more than a skillset. If you turn up with the right attitude defence tends to follow.
“We needed that after last week’s poor effort, to bounce back with the right attitude at home. Like I keep saying, it’s about winning the support from our followers and that kind of defensive effort will do that.”
Halfback Tyler Chadburn opened the scoring in the 16th minute when he sliced through the opposition defence on the back of a scrum win.
Chadburn turned distributer in the 47th when he threw a nice short ball to Shaun Maloney who crashed over to extend the lead to 12-0.
The Magpies finally got a reward for their efforts in the 54th minute when Herschel Gideon won the race to a grubber kick in the corner, but the joy was short lived as a Jamie Anderson intercept saw the Bears push the lead back to two converted tries two minutes later.
A penalty goal with 10 minutes remaining saw the final margin of 14 points.
Chadburn had one of his strongest performances of the season while Shane Gray stood out in the back row as did Shaun Maloney off the bench.
Lenihan praised the efforts of Gray as well as five-eighth Daniel Schwass and lock Jake Hughes (both called up from the Colts) who were all new additions to the team.
“I think they gave that bit of added enthusiasm that we lacked last week,” he said.
“Enthusiasm is contagious. The rest of the boys really fed off that.”
Magpies coach Josh Hannay was extremely disappointed with his team’s effort on the day but is still hopeful they can finish their season on a high.
“It was pretty woeful I thought,” Hannay said of his team’s performance.
“Conditions weren’t great but both teams had to play in it. I thought we probably weren’t up for the fight in the second half.
“It is important that we finish the year well because the way the guys have played this year I think belies where we sit on the ladder.
“We’ve competed with the very top sides and I think it would be very disappointing if we don’t win these last two games at home and finish the year on a high.”
Earlier in the day the Bears Colts went down 19-16. It was the minor premiers’ first loss since round three.
BURLEIGH BEARS 20 (Tyler Chadburn, Shaun Maloney, Jamie Anderson tries; Tyler Chadburn 3, Daniel Schwass goals) def SOUTHS LOGAN MAGPIES 6 (Herschel Gideon try; Patrick Mago goal) at Pizzey Park.
Final teams
Burleigh Bears: 1. Henare Wells 2. Corbin Kiernan 3. Dimitri Pelo 4. Steve Michaels 5. Jared Te’o 6. Daniel Schwass 7. Tyler Chadburn 8. Darren Griffiths (c) 9. Nafe Seluini 10. Matt Bell 11. Shane Gray 12. Louis Fanene 13. Jake Hughes 15. James Dunley 16. Chris Kitching 17. Shaun Maloney 18. Jamie Anderson
Souths Logan Magpies: 1. Ihaka Watene 2. Ramon Filipine 3. Grant Cooke 4. Dallas Anderson 5. Luke Archer 6. Phil Dennis (c) 7. Rhys Jacks 8. Luke Page 9. Mitch Cronin 10. Zac Lemberg 11. Andrew Edwards 12. Patrick Mago 13. Luke Bateman 14. Herschel Gideon 19. Leon Panapa 16. Rez Phillips 20. Simanu Crichton
