Neil Cadigan
Campbell Construction Co. Tweed Seagulls coach Ben Woolf refused to blame the withdrawal of all five selected Gold Coast Titans players as an excuse for a lacklustre performance that saw the Gulls outplayed by Wynnum Manly 36-24 at Iona College on Sunday.
Don’t let the 12-point margin camouflage the poor effort by a Seagulls side that went into the clash with seven wins from their previous nine games.
Wynnum led 26-0 after just 20 minutes as they too freely rolled through the middle of the ruck and picked up five tries in the first quarter of the match.
While Tweed were certainly on the back foot after an NRL directive, as a follow up to the COVID-19 scare in Brisbane, came through on Saturday ruling all NRL squad members had to be withdrawn from matches played in Brisbane. That meant Jai Whitbread, Jayden Campbell, Treymain Spry, Toby Sexton and Darius Farmer.
But Woolf was having nothing of it if his side wanted to use that as an excuse.
Credit: Dylan Parker Photography
“That’s no excuse at all for how we played; we played with no energy and just didn’t turn up which is really disappointing,” he said. “For the second week in a row we were out-enthused in the first half but this time it was too late to turn in around.
“Wynnum made few errors in the first half and we able to maintain possession and just steamrolled through us in the middle. Even though we were missing the Titans players we had plenty who have played at this level and a few debutants you’d expected to be excited and bring energy. It just wasn’t there.
“We had no line speed in defence and they scored in the first four minutes; we weren’t in the game from then.”
Wynnum’s first try, to winger Edward Burns, came after two ‘six-again’ rulings in the same set. Their next came after a dropped bomb, scored by halfback Kauri Aupouri-Puketapu. By the time winger Matthew Lyons scored the first of his two tries in the 20th minute, Tweed had conceded a try at an average of every four minutes and rarely seen the ball for 10 minutes.
A barge over try by Jaleel Seve-Derbas in the 33rd minute brought the score back to 28-6 before the break but the second half began as poorly as the first for Tweed, with hooker Jayden Berrell and Lyons crossing for Wynnum which saw the score blow out to 36-6.
Tweed picked up three consolation tries in the last 20 minutes to make the score respectable.
The first was scored by fullback Talor Walter, who proved a threat with the ball all match, when he beat the defence with footwork and pace from a scrum. Hooker Liam Hampson, who again brought enthusiasm from the bench, picked up a double in the 63rd and 67th minutes when he dummied and darted from dummy half close to the line.
To make the day worse for coach Woolf, winger Rowland Jacobs left the field with 10 minutes remaining with a badly cut finger. He will go for a scan to see if the finger is also broken.
WYNNUM MANLY SEAGULLS 36 (M Lyons 2,K Aupouri-Puketapu 2, , E Burns, S Cobbo, J Berrell tries; J Campagnolo 4 goals) def. TWEED SEAGULLS 24 (L Hampson 2, J Saveel-Derbas, T Walters, L McGrady 4 goals) at Iona College.
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