Tweed Heads broke a three-game losing streak with an emphatic 50-4 win over the Burleigh Bears at Piggabeen yesterday.
There was little the Bears could do to slow down the rampaging Seagulls who eventually crossed for a 10 tries to one victory.
Seagulls coach Aaron Zimmerle said it was a relief to get the win after going through a tough month of results.
“It’s not so much pressure that builds, it’s more your own expectations and asking ‘why aren’t we winning?’” he said.
“The score line today was more about once we broke the drought it became a flood.”
While the scoreboard was one-sided, the contest still produced many of the physical confrontations that Tweed/Burleigh games are famous for.
Burleigh started the game with an extra forward and showed from the beginning their intention was to use their massive pack to gain the physical advantage.
Tweed however anticipated that Burleigh would try to intimidate them and came up with a plan to spin it to their advantage.
“I think the thing that helps us in some ways is that they are the bigger side which allows them to physically bully, but the negative to that is they can come out of the line going for that shot and miss,” Zimmerle said.
“We pin-pointed a couple of players that were likely to come hunting our blokes and we tried to work them over and made sure we got at them multiple times back-to-back and if that happened then it turned out that we’d end up in front with a line break or a quick play-the-ball.
“You’ve just got to weather that opening onslaught and then if you can do that you’re okay.”
Zimmerle praised the work of former Bear turned Seagull Sam Meskell who was pivotal in his 80 minutes at hooker as well as fullback Shaun Carney and halfback Jamal Fogarty.
For Burleigh, it was another long day at the office; their second massive loss in three appearances.
Bears coach Jim Lenihan said his side’s effort is there, but a lack of discipline and mental application on a weekly basis is letting them down.
“The difference between our best and our worst is a long way. We’ve got to be far more consistent,” he said.
“We probably lost the game within the first 15 minutes by just giving them too much possession. We’re a big side, but we can’t spend time defending all day. We can’t just keep giving them time with the ball.
“I think the penalty count was about 7-3 at halftime, we just can’t keep giving them fresh starts. We expose ourselves to poor performances when we’re continually giving them the ball to have a crack at us.
“We’ve got to get back on the horse, start training hard and just go through the parts of the game that we’ve got to understand. It’s not so much running in and bashing people, we’ve got to have a little bit more strategy and tactic around the way we control ourselves.
“When we make all the effort to do all the right little things and do a good job against Mackay one week and then come out here in a game which should have been a lot closer than it was today, we let ourselves down which is the most disappointing part.”
Earlier in the day Burleigh’s Colts racked up a 72-4 win while the Bears local A Grade side also got up over Tweed 42-20.
TWEED HEADS SEAGULLS 50 (Shaun Carney 2, Ricardo Parata 2, Blake Anderson 2, Nathanael Barnes, Davin Crampton, Kalifa Faifai Loa, Matt Robinson tries; Jamal Fogarty 3, Blake Anderson 2 goals) def BURLEIGH BEARS 4 (Khan Ahwang try) at Piggabeen Sports.
Final Teams
Tweed Heads Seagulls: 1. Shaun Carney 2. Nathanael Barnes 3. Leva Li 4. Davin Crampton 5. Kalifa Faifai Loa 6. Ricardo Parata 7. Jamal Fogarty 8. Damian Sironen (c) 9. Sam Meskell 10. Will Bugden 11. Matt Robinson 12. Dane Clarke 13. Sam Saville 14. Blake Anderson 15. Mark Offerdahl 16. Agnatius Paasi 17. Oliver Percy
Burleigh Bears: 1. Tyler Chadburn 2. Khan Ahwang 3. Jaiden Hawkes 4. Dimitri Pelo 5. Jamie Anderson 18. Mark Ioane 7. Ryley Jacks 8. Mitch Sharp 9. Todd Seymour 10. Pele Peletelese 11. Ayden Lee 12. Louie Fanene 13. Darren Griffiths (c) 14. Tom Rowles 16. Jason Chan 17. Josh Ailaomai 20. David Hala
