String of Runaway tries brings down Gulls

RUNAWAY Bay have stunned their Seagulls rivals with a phenomenal fightback to sure up their hold on second place on the Gold Coast Rugby League ladder.

Tweed Heads were on track under the Bycroft Oval lights when they led 20-6, only for Bay to pile on a series of unanswered tries to win 30-20.

Tweed coach Darryl Fisher said it was a tough outcome for his players to cop but conceded they had not entered the contest with lofty expectations.

“We had no middles on the bench because we have got 14 players injured or unavailable throughout the club at the moment,” he said. “It is a little bit of a challenging time for the next couple of weeks I would say.”

The situation meant Fisher had to field three middle forwards for the entire 80 minutes, contributing to latematch fatigue.

Nonetheless, he credited Bay for their surge and predicted they would pose questions to title favourites Burleigh and Tugun.

“The last 20 minutes they finished really strong and pretty much three times in a row on play five they got points either through offloads on play five when they were running it or from a kick,” Fisher said.

“They are a big strong side so I think if you give them enough possession and enough territory they are going to be hard to stop for anybody.

“From our learning perspective we should have controlled the game better for that last quarter.”