Writing’s on the wall for Tweed
TWEED Heads have emerged from a mixed opening night of Intrust Super Cup trials with a clear direction of where they need to improve to be finals competitors this season.
As well as under-18 and under-20 fixtures, the Seagulls and Souths Logan squared off in an ISC doubleheader on Saturday night designed to showcase their entire playing lists.
Tweed won the earlier ISC contest – unofficially the lower-end game – by 24-6 to give fans at Piggabeen Sports Complex reason to smile but they were outclassed in the later match when most of the bigger names rolled into acpecially tion. The Magpies scored the first 16 points of the match before Tweed got on the board through impressive back Elijah Nicholas, who has converted from rugby union.
That try did not swing the momentum for long though, with Souths Logan running away 26-6 winners.
“The first game we were pretty happy with. The second game we were probably disappointed in some areas and we obviously lost on the scoreboard but some of the things that we weren’t doing well aren’t going to be too difficult to fix,” said Tweed assistant coach Darryl Fisher.
“I think defensively there was probably just a little lack of recognition of how to manage the speed of the ruck, eswere against a bigger side.
“Some of them got it and some of them didn’t quite get it so if we can get everyone on the same page it will be pretty easy to change that.
“And a lot of difficulties we were having were just choices by ourselves that led to errors. I think we had 10 sets where we probably failed to complete in the first three tackles so we giving up a lot of possession to a big side and that just makes it tough.
“It’s not too hard to change that.”
Tweed have a camp in Byron Bay this weekend before facing Burleigh in a February 23 trial.
Several players from the earlier game put forward cases for more opportunities, with Bayley Faull and Keb Vaetoe among those to impress Fisher.
Fullback Jack Mackin, who is dual registered with Runaway Bay, had a mixed night under lights but Fisher is under no illusions about what he can bring to the club.
“I coached against him in A-grade a couple of years ago and he gave me nightmares a few times then,” he said.