There was a second weekend of encouraging signs for Seagulls’ Intrust Super Cup coach Aaron Zimmerle with an impressive 28-14 trial game win against reigning premiers Burleigh Bears at Firth Park, Mudgeeraba on Saturday.
And the depth, and size or power, that he has to choose from in his front row rotation was thrown another dimension with the performance of Fijian international and former Souths Logan prop Tikiko Noke.
Pictured: Tikiko Noke playing for Souths Logan in 2016.
The block-busting Fijian, who was chosen in the 2013 World Cup squad and the 2015 Test against PNG from the Fijian domestic competition, scored two tries against the Bears – one a destructive individual effort from 40 metres.
He will face his former club in the final trial match this weekend and if his development continues that gives the Seagulls an array of riches with Noke, Damian Sironen, Ethan Price, Carne Doyle-Manga and Shane Gillham who have all proven adept at state cup level – and more back-up.
Zimmerle was pleased with his side’s performance which was a further confidence booster heading into the Cup’s first round clash against Ipswich Jets on March 5 (2pm at Piggabeen).
He has been looking for aggression and consistency in defence and more creativity in attack.
“We’ve gone back just to a very simple style of attack which is less about patterns and shapes and more about playing what’s in front [of the players],” Zimmerle said.
“And that’s a credit to my two assistants – Clint Barends and Matt King – who have worked really hard on that in our pre-season.”
There were several good performers other than Noke, including former Storm under-20s player (and Bears under-18s premiership winner) Jack Cook, hooker Will Johnstone and centre James Toole.
The Bears had a strong pack particularly with former Titans prop Matt White who has returned to the Gold Coast after a season in Melbourne, former Titans Jeff Lynch and Jamie Dowling plus Luke Page.
“The speed of the game was legitimate, there was real feeling, real contact in it and I’m super pleased probably just with the things we’d tried to work on,” said coach Aaron Zimmerle.
“And we’re trying to lay a foundation there where instead of being all this prescribed football which tends to be the norm now, we want our blokes just to play what’s in front of them.
“I think we got a result from that with one of our tries came from just a simple decision to go down a short side and the centre put the winger away and the halfback pushed up in support and Michael Burgess scored a 40 or 50m try because we just went down a small space.
“People who have been at our club for a while like Will Johnstone showed he can play Queensland Cup, James Toole is another guy that has been there but hasn’t yet debuted, but he showed he can play Queensland Cup. Jack Cook was just in the thick of everything. He gave a few penalties away but he also got three turnovers just through being physically aggressive in defence.
“That’s been a focus – defensively we had to be better. We had to bring more into each contest that we went into. It was only a trial but the two things that we really wanted was to be aggressive in our defence and know that we could actually put pressure on oppositions and we did that and we wanted to know that our simplified game plan allowed us to play a bit more heads up and we did that.”
The coach had special praise for Noke.
“One of Tikiko’s tries came from just crashing through the goal-line defence; just like ripping a hole and going over the top of someone to score under the posts. And then his other try, for a front-rower, was ridiculous. From 40m out, he busted through the middle of the ruck of Burleigh, got into the backfield, accelerated, pulled away, pulled out of a tackle, took on the fullback one-on-one and then left-foot stepped and beat him to score under the posts.
“We were 16-14 at that stage and then that kicked us out to 22 and then we scored one more. It was the tipping point with 10 minutes to go in the game.
“Tikiko played 50 minutes and went head to head with Matt White, their prop who has played over 100 NRL games. He gained plenty of respect.”
Burleigh won the A-grade match 42-12. Tweed won the under-20s Colts by 46-8.
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