NORTHS showed what they are capable of with a dominant win over Swifts yesterday.
The Tigers beat Swifts 30-10 to claim the Harry Langer Memorial Trophy at Keith Sternberg Oval.
Swifts had only lost once this season but were completely outplayed by Norths for all but a brief period in the first half.
Article written by Jay Buchan and published in the QT on Monday 3 June 2013.
Article: http://www.qt.com.au/news/tigers-in-tune/1891583/
The Tigers established the early lead with two tries on the right edge, with first Brad Oddi, then Tu’u Maori slicing easily through the Swifts’ defence for tries.
They were both set up by five-eighth Josh Roberts.
Swifts responded with tries to Stephen O’Donohue and Josh Seage to level the scores, before a Jarrod Biggs try gave the home team a 14-10 lead at the break.
The second half was all Norths.
Tries in the third and fifth minutes gave them a 24-10 lead before a period of play that summed up Swifts’ afternoon.
Swifts had the ball in attack and forced a Norths’ drop-out and repeat set, only for replacement forward Zeb Nuuola to lose the ball over the line.
With 13 minutes remaining Swifts got their final chance to get back into the game.
Tigers fullback Biggs was sin binned for a late tackle and prop Tuuta Manu was sent off soon after for dropping a fore-arm onto a Swifts player.
But even against 11 men Swifts could not get through the heroic Tigers defence and with four minutes to go Gericho Cecil scored at the other end to seal the win.
For Norths, it was a case of what they have been working towards finally coming together.
“I think we’ve got it in us to compete for both halves of football,” Norths halfback Steven West said.
“But in the last couple of weeks we’ve only put in one half.
“With the conditions, we knew we had to keep it tight.
“The conditions made it hard for their big men to stop and change direction in defence.”
The Tigers were provided with good momentum all afternoon thanks to the likes of props Manu and Ray Schuster.
Centre Tu’u Maori mixed his backline contributions with the work of a forward on early tackles.
“That’s what we played off,” West said.
“We’ve gone forward a little bit this season but not a full 80 minutes.”
The effort was typified by the way the Tigers held Swifts out when they were down two men.
“We said in the break of play we had to work hard for each other,” West said.
“Push up on both sides and work on the inside and commit to our tackles.”
The challenge now for Norths is to recreate the effort on a regular basis.
“We need to be working on consistently putting in two good halves,” West said.
“We know we’ve got the players out wide to score points.”
For Swifts, halfback Sherrick Hemopo said the performance from his team was disappointing but not surprising.
“Full credit to Norths,” Hemopo said.
“You’ve got to turn up with the right mentality. They turned up.
“It starts at training and we didn’t turn up on Tuesday or Thursday either.”
Hemopo hoped the loss would provide the spark needed to get the Bluebirds back on track.
In yesterday’s other A grade match, Brothers beat Fassifern 28-4.
IRL SCORES
- Brothers 28 d Fassifern 4.
- Norths 30 d Swifts 10.
- Goodna 36 d West End 16.
Article written by Jay Buchan and published in the QT on Monday 3 June 2013.
Article: http://www.qt.com.au/news/tigers-in-tune/1891583/
