Brothers prevail in battle of underdone foes

BROTHERS sailed to their sixth win from seven games in the NRL NT against Nightcliff at Warren Park yesterday, 34-14.

Both sides entered the clash understrength, in particular the Dragons who had six of their first-choice starting lineup sidelined with injuries.

Brothers coach Michael MacLean said it was a scrappy performance from his side but the two competition points were all that mattered.

“They were a bit undermanned; we didn’t get them on a great day. We had a few out as well but we got over the line so that was the main thing,” he said.

“We had played one game in four or five weeks so that was the biggest thing, we were just a bit sloppy. The break wasn’t great for us because we lost a bit of momentum.

“It was good that we caught Nightcliff underdone because we certainly were.”

The first half was filled with errors. Nightcliff failed to complete more than half their sets, while Brothers also had a case of the dropsies.

The Brethren took a 14-10 lead into the break. It could have been more if Leon Rotumah had successfully grounded the football across the line after he made a bust from 35 metres out.

He made up for it 10 minutes later. The second time he cut through the Nightcliff defence from halfway, before securely grounding the ball once he found the in goal.

It was followed by a Lyle Ah Sam try which made the score 14-4. However, just before half time the Dragons cut the margin after a smart shift down the left touchline saw halfback Nigel Maher cross the stripe.

Nightcliff had earlier opened the scoring through Matt Kirwan, before Josh Saveka – who Nightcliff found hard to put down all afternoon – scored his own four-pointer.

It was a false dawn for Nightcliff. Brothers came out in the second half and scored five unanswered tries to take the game away.

Lyle Ah Sam scored one to bag a double, while he set up another for Liam Philpott, who also notched a brace.

In other games, Palmerston had a big win over Litchfield 42-22 and the Northern Sharks had an even more comprehensive win against Souths, thrashing them 56-6.