Brothers keep their cool in the heat of battle
BROTHERS finally have a win on the board in the 2017 CDRL season, running away with a 38-14 victory over Atherton.
In a match that heralded a cameo return from none other than one-time captain-coach, club legend and former Northern Pride player Chey Bird, the home side ground their way to a 20-4 lead at halftime.
Atherton got it back to within 12 but Brothers pulled away as the visitors began to struggle with the heat, including a runaway 60m effort from recruit Peter Tuccandidgee, one of two tries for the game.
The Roosters earned a consolation try just before fulltime but it was Robbie Swain’s side celebrating when the siren sounded.
“We were talking about it all week, getting up to a reasonable standard for Agrade, especially on these hot days,” Swain said. “We slowly got there and obviously the last two games we’ve been in front and they come back, so to actually kick on and finish the game for the solid 80 minutes, that was all we were after.
“It wasn’t the best-looking two points, but two points is better than none, so we’re happy having those two points in our pocket. There’s a lot to work on.
“They’re a decent side, they managed 14 points on us.
“We’ve just basically got to look at our defence and those half-chances when we’ve got the ball, make sure they stick and work off the back end of that.”
Roosters coach Dean Howard said his side was not far away and just had to start holding on to the ball to be in the mix with the better sides.
“You can say it’s fitness but you know, you can do as much fitness as you like, but that heat, you know we don’t get that heat in Atherton so you know, we need to do a bit more fitness in the heat, but I think it was mistakes that let us down and they scored tries from it,” he said.