Hunters’ defeat a ‘ major wake- up call’
PNG Hunters coach Michael Marum says his side has been given a major wake- up call in their bid to take out this year’s minor premiership, after yesterday’s 28- 12 loss to Redcliffe.
The Intrust Super Cup competition leaders suffered just their fourth loss of the season after an error- riddled perform-
Townsville have a far superior for and against but this weekend’s road trip to play bottom side Central Queensland takes on vital significance given they finish their campaign against top- two teams Papua New Guinea and Sunshine Coast.
Two tries in the last three minutes against Burleigh made the scoreboard more respectable and Blackhawks prop Daniel Beasley said they must stop shooting themselves in the foot.
“They scored tries at stages when they shouldn’t have, errors and compounding errors gave them field position which led to their points,” he said.
“We can’t take Capra lightly ei- ance against a defensively strong Dolphins team.
Following last week’s 22- all draw against the eighth- placed Mackay Cutters, the alarm bells are now sounding for the Hunters, who have a habit of fading towards the back end of the season.
Marum said he would do everything he could in the next week to remind his team what they were fighting for. ther. We have to get ourselves right, we’ve let ourselves down two weeks in a row and need to get back to playing some decent footy.”
Blackhawks coach Kristian Woolf said they needed to lift their desperation at crucial times of the game.
“It makes every week important. We’re certainly a good enough footy side that we can go on and win the next three games,” he said.
“The last two weeks we’ve been making too many unforced errors which haven’t allowed us to build pressure, and we probably haven’t been as hungry at the contest at certain stages as the opposition have been.”
“The boys didn’t want that game,” Marum said of the loss.
“We did set that goal to become minor premiers but … that was disappointing. It would have been good to get the two points to go closer to the minor premiership.
“It’s been tough. Another loss and we can drop to number four or number three ( on the ladder). That’s not good.
“This is probably a major
Blackhawks prop Oshae Tuiasau suffered an ankle sprain against Burleigh, but Woolf is hopeful that he will be fit to take his place against the Capras after he showed strong signs of improvement yesterday morning.
“He looked a lot better today so fingers crossed he’ll be OK,” Woolf said. wake- up call for us. We will all sit together and see where we are moving forward.”
The Hunters do have a fairly tough run home, starting with next week’s showdown against the Ipswich Jets.
Elsewhere yesterday, Wynnum Manly caused a massive upset over Easts with a 22- 6 victory. The Tigers have now slipped to fourth place on the ladder.