A Grade Match report
Just like road trips to Innisfail in years gone past there was always a sense of positively but we always know we have to turn up as they seem to always come out of the woodwork at home. The game was to prove to be quite a tussle with the Vikings playing there usual tactics going in for late and dirty shots and not to mention there ability to throw a couple. All that being said we opened the scouring through some great lead up work thru the forwards to then see the ball sailing thru the hands in the backs for Shannon Mackey to score. First half tries would also go to a big running Noel Stanton and the ever hard working Oscar Fasavalu. There was some good work around the paddock and I could see the boys working on the things we spoke about at training.
After the resumption of the game we applied plenty of pressure to there defence and showed plenty crack appearing. I think that with the cracks appearing we tended to show a little complacency. Ralph Susuve was to eventually cross the line in the right wing and it would have appeared that the Innisfail player did not appreciate the try being scored even to a point he tried to come in late. We did concede a penalty kick and later a try of about 3 penalties, unfortunate but I suppose it is a lesson to us to maintained discipline regardless of our opposition. One of the high lights
of the game was David “Robo” Robinson making a break thru some real flimsy defence to run 20 meters (he will tell you it was at least 50) only to be pulled down, but his quick thinking and good body position allowed him to pop the ball back to captain courage’s Mike Dewhurst to run the 40 meters to score the try in the corner. Again it would appear that Innisfail didn’t like Mike scouring that try either with the defender placing a cheap shot or two on the captain. Robo was to score a try of his own thru some great forward lead up work to see Robo crash of the line for a well earned Try.
One unfortunate negative was Tahl copping a Red Card late in the game after the eastern touch judge run 60 meters to report what he thought was Tahl throwing the first punch (To be honest I was 10 meters from the incident and I know he did not instigate or provoke it) but hey that how it goes sometimes. The unfortunate thing is the fact that they had players cautioned plenty of times during the game, we have one incident then we cop a Red Card. Not to sure how this happens but it does come down to the Referee’s and Touch Judges interpretation of the laws of our great game.
In the end the final score was 36 to 8, we where hoping for a clean sheet for our defence but was not to be.
Dave ‘Norto’ Norton
