Neil Cadigan
Burleigh Bears continued their dominance over the Ben Campbell Building Group Seagulls, running out 42-6 winners in the Intrust Super Cup match at Piggabeen Sports Complex today.
The Seagulls were starved of possession and territory for the first half hour and defensively did well to be behind 14-0 at half-time. These key half-time stats emphasised how dominant the Bears were in those areas: Tweed had only 43 percent of possession, of that 69 percent was in their own half and they played the ball only three times in the Bears’ 20-metre zone.
Errors with the ball, a run of penalties and the Bears’ effectiveness in their completions soon took its toll though.
Yet had either one of two close calls had gone their way in the first half of the second half, the Seagulls could have been much more in the match after the break.
First, debutant winger Callum Boomer had the ball stripped from him over the line in the right corner but Tweed earned an offside penalty. In the next set fullback Talor Walters crossed on the left, only for the try to be called back because decoy runner Lamar Liolevave made contact with defender Hayden Schwass.
The Bears worked their way upfield soon afterwards and left centre Sami Sauiluma crossed for his second try from a Dylan Phythian grubber kick to make it 18-0.
Four more Bears’ tries followed as the Seagulls’ plight was made harder with three players having to be replaced because of hamstring injuries – hooker Christian Hazard, second-rower Kalani Going and bench forward Bayley Faull.
“I thought we did a good job defending them in the first half with the amount of possession they had; they were pretty clinical Burleigh,” Woolf said.
“But we went away from what we wanted to do and Burleigh took advantage of that.
“We just didn’t get in the grind to eventually wear a team down and wait until momentum turned. They just didn’t make an error to allow us to do that and we made too many errors at crucial times.”
The loss was the fifth straight for the Seagulls – four of them against the top four teams on the ladder – and they must regroup now before playing against the Capras at Ilfracombe in north-west Queensland as part of Country Week.
Burleigh’s first half tries came in the seventh minute to Sauiluma from a shift to the left near the line; their second came in the 11th through Jacob Hind on the left and the third when lock Sam Coster scored the first of his two tries after being put into a gap by halfback Jamal Fogarty and stepping past two defenders.
Of Burleigh’s five second-half tries, three came from short kicks, one came from a dummy half dive by Pat Politoni and the last from a drive by prop Luke Page from short range.
Leilani Latu scored Tweed’s only try, in the 67th minute, when he charged through from close range.
The victory was Burleigh’s eighth in succession over the Seagulls since 2015.
Burleigh Bears 42 (S Sauiluma 2, S Coster 2, J Hind, P Politoni, T Leo, L Page tries; J Fogarty 5 goals) def. Tweed Heads Seagulls 6 (L Latu try; L McGrady goal) at Piggabeen Sports Complex.
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