Tigers end 1015-day drought to roar again
Long-suffering Tweed finally have reason to celebrate
The long-suffering near threeyear wait to win a match is over for the Tweed Coast Tigers male AFL side.
The club had been winless for a painful stretch of 1015 days – until Saturday.
The Tigers won their first game in nearly three years against the Coomera Magpies – 16.9 (105) to 6.6 (42) at Barry Sheppard Oval during round 1 of the new season.
In a twist that would have left club fans suffering even longer, Tigers club president Andrew Ryan said the game was close to being cancelled.
“I pretty much had to plead with the council that morning to let us use the ground,” he said.
“The way the weather looked on Friday, we weren’t sure whether we’re actually going to go ahead either, then the sun came out all day and it was fantastic.”
Tigers captain Connor McDowell credited the win to their pre-season buy in, new coach Dean Solomon and fresh recruits.
Solomon joined the team as head coach last year, bringing with him his experience as AFL Premiership winner in 2000 and as the former Gold Coast Suns assistant coach for 10 years.
“We’ve got a great coach and we’ve had some new recruits which have helped massively,” McDowell said.
“It was a good all round performance.”
Despite the epic losing streak, team moral had been high heading into the game with improvements from last year spurring them on, he added.
“We knew we were going in with a good pre-season,” he said.
“We just go one game at a time. We knew if we played our footy we had every chance of winning.”
While the Tigers came out well in front by the end of the game, McDowell said there were nerves for the team going into the second quarter.
“We had a flying start,” he said.
“Then we fell asleep for about 10 minutes in the second quarter where they (the Coomera Magpies) kicked a few back which made us a bit nervous.
“As soon as we switched back on we started playing good footy again – when you haven’t won for that long you just keep going to the final siren to make sure of it.”