Bears ready for Anzac Day match with Clydesdales

The Bears defence and discipline will need attention and would be top of the list of things to fix. The Bears missed 53 tackles against the Dolphins and 39 against the Tweed.

Bears coach Roy Leoni was looking to build the defence first this weekend.

“Fatigue has played a big part in our games and we just fall in and out of the contest at the moment,” Leoni said.

“We have been working on our defence and defending to a high standard for whole games, against Dolphins and Tweed, we let them score in large parts and then hold them out.”

Samuel Shannon has been holding his head up amongst the challenges of the first two rounds.

Shannon made 28 tackles against the Dolphins and 143 metres against the Tweed Seagulls.

“Sammy is someone has been a great leader at the Bears this year, I have challenged him to play big minutes and to move to the middle and he’s doing that,” Leoni said.

“He has done eight weeks training with the Hostplus Cup side and continues to work on things in Colts, but he has been great for us.”

The Clydesdales will be looking to use the break to go onward and upwards.

Against the Falcons most recently, the Clydesdales limped home after losing 88-8. The score was 48-0 at halftime and the Clydesdale will have to work on their defence after missing 65 tackles.

“That’s a trap to fall into, you can look at that score and think well we can find some form here, but if you think that you will get beaten," Leoni said of this week's opposition.

“We will be worrying about us and fixing the things we want to fix.”

Elsewhere in the competition, the round will kick off tomorrow with the Sunshine Coast Falcons at home to the Mackay Cutters. 

The Falcons were an unstoppable force against the Clydesdales in their last game and scored 15 tries to be up 48-0 at halftime.

They then went on to post a big win which included 14 line breaks, with three of them coming from Mason Peut who was sensational.

This weekend, they take on the Cutters who will want to take their first half from their last game and keep it this week. They were up 12-4, but eventually by fulltime they had lost their advantage to go down 26-12 against the Central Queensland Capras.

In their last game, the Jets took a long while to get started against Brisbane Tigers and once it was 40-0 at halftime, things were always going to be tough to turn around. 

It took the Jets 41 minutes to score and they just kept letting the Tigers score in clumps.

This weekend, they take on the Norths Devils who lost to the Magpies 22-10 and again, it was their start that let them down. The Magpies scored three times in the first 31 minutes.

It took until the 36 minutes for the Devils to score, leaving them with too much momentum to make up. Isaac Hawes put in a solid stint for his team and made 41 tackles.

Northern Pride didn’t get it right against the Blackhawks in their last match, despite having plenty of ball with 51 per cent. However, they couldn’t stop Townsville from rolling over them.

Their opponents this weekend Redcliffe Dolphins beat their traditional rivals the Wynnum Manly Seagulls in Round 2 and went to the break pretty happy with their performance. Ali Leiataua scored four tries in the 28-22 win and two-line breaks that broke the Seagulls.

Last game, Wynnum Manly were so close to beating the Dolphins and so this weekend, they will be keen to make sure they get the ball and keep it and not waste their chances.

They will take on the Souths Logan Magpies who produced a good performance against the Devils, with plenty of line breaks and tackle breaks that kept the Devils under pressure.

Denzel Samoa was great for the Magpies and made 176 metres.

The Blackhawks would have been really happy with their performance against the Pride in their last match where they just found ways through and over the defence.

Then on the other side of the ball, Joel Baldwin defended and Zac Laybutt made 221 metres and scored two tries.

Their opposition this weekend are the Tweed Seagulls who are coming off a big win over the Bears.

Klese Haas was sensational with three tries and Tom Weaver was on debut in Colts and slotted six goals. Brent Barnes made metres like he couldn’t stop with 204 metres.

Tina Turner would have sung that the Tigers were simply the best against the Jets. 

In the team, they posted 11 tries, made 12 line breaks and 39 tackle breaks so there wasn’t too much wrong with anything they did.

This game between the Tigers and the Capras might be the match of the round with two form teams on two wins going head-to-head.

The Capras beat the Cutters 26-12 in their last game, and controlled the match from behind, they were behind at half time but showed great composure.

You can view all QRL statewide competitions matches via QPlus.tv.