Bond pay for penalties

ILL-DISCIPLINE has seen Bond University throw away a golden opportunity to start their Queensland Premier Rugby season with a bang.

Playing out of Glennon Park in Nerang, Bond coughed up a 17-7 lead at the break to sink to a 32-25 loss to Wests on Saturday.

Vice-captain and halfback Harry Nucifora said the side only had themselves to blame.

“I wouldn’t say Wests won the game; we probably lost it,” he said.

“We played good footy for the first 60 minutes and then just dropped off in that last 20 minutes pretty much.

“In that back 20, the guys were a bit lazy with their body height and got a few high-tackle penalties and that led to Pearce Fitzgerald getting a yellow card due to not necessarily just the one tackle he did but off the back of a few other ones that the team were doing.

“That hurt us. Off the back of being lazy, we just slipped off tackles and things like that and they got a bit of momentum.”

Bond scored a late try to bring a draw within reach but ran out of time. Former Brisbane Broncos winger and Queensland Reds squad member Lachlan Maranta was among those to score for Wests.

Nucifora drew positives from the way his side did have the game in their hands.

“Comparing it from the

(trial) game we played last weekend against GPS, we sort of altered our shape a little bit and it was working really well,” he said.

“I thought (flyhalf Mitch Third) and I had good control of the game for the parts that we were on together.”

For Nucifora, the chance to play a full campaign at premier level is a refreshing change from jumping between under-20 representative teams as has been the case in recent years.

“It will be good to be able to get used to playing with the same guys week in, week out,” the 21-year-old said.

Recruits Dan Boardman and Joey Fittock both scored tries on their club debut, with Third and Sam Wood also crossing.

Elsewhere, University of Queensland and GPS notched Round 1 wins while Sunnybank and Norths shared the points in a 27-27 draw.

After a weekend off for Easter, Bond will return on April 7 against GPS at Ashgrove.