Brethren pack powers
ANOTHER season’s worth of hard- hitting rugby league will boil down to a Herbert River versus Brothers grand final.
The old foes will square off in this weekend’s Townsville and Districts Rigby League A grade decider after Brothers maintained their late season surge with a 40- 10 victory over minor premiers Western Lions in Saturday’s preliminary final.
Brothers ran in seven tries to the Lions’ two, with Sam Foster and Tremayne Bowie scoring doubles, while Palm Island talents Obe Geia and Gresham Ross also flourished on the back of the Brethren’s upfront dominance to post eye- catching tries.
Experienced halves Tennyson Elliott and Roy Baira wreaked havoc against a determined but relatively inexperienced Lions outfit that struggled to execute in the big moments.
The Lions had their chances, with the best moment coming midway through the first half when BJ Munns scored down the right edge to have the Lions trailing Broth- ers 8- 4, following two tries to the Brethren Bowie and Geia.
The Lions suffered a major blow, however, when fiveeighth Brad Cross was taken to hospital as a precaution following a head clash with a Lions teammate and Elliott took on the Lions defensive line and scored to make it 20- 4 at halftime.
Tries from Foster and Bowie early in the second stanza all but nailed the door shut, although Budhagi Gibuma got one back for Lions with 15 minutes left thanks to a sideline bust by winger James Baira, with Gibuma receiving an inside pass to score near the posts.
But there was no epic fightback with both sides going through the motions before Foster capped off the Brethren’s big win with a try on the bell.
“We had to stand up today and obviously Western Lions are a tough side,” Brothers captain Jack Kelleher said.
“We lost to Herbert River in the first semi and we spoke about the little things we had to fix up, and the Centrals game the week before was a good test for us, and we completed and did what we wanted to do and then rolled on to here. early from
“We have an outstanding forward pack. That’s one of our strength and the last couple of weeks we’ve really rolled through the middle and earned the right to go to an edge.”
Brothers and Herbert River will now clash in their fifth A grade grand final, the first coming in 2006.
The last was in 2013 when Brothers scored an extra- time win, making it by the far the TDRL’s greatest grand final rivalry of recent times.
Lions veteran Jimmy Baira said his team would learn from this year’s finals’ experience.
“In the end, our penalty count just got us on the backfoot too much and we just couldn’t defend,” he said. “We thought we had a good chance but we just didn’t turn up.”
Centrals held off a frantic Herbert River last- minute attacking opportunity to win the reserve grade preliminary clash 20- 16 and Western Lions beat Charters Towers 28- 10 in the under- 18s encounter. TDRL preliminary finals. Under- 18s: Western Lions 28 def Charters Towers 10
Reserves: Centrals 20 Herbert River 16
A grade: Brothers 40 ( S Foster 2, T Bowie 2, G Ross, O Geia, T Elliott; goals Sillis 6) def Western Lions 10 ( B Gibuma, BJ Munns; goal N Bowman) def