Teachers West smash best of rest
Dogs show plenty of bite under master coach Shiells
There’s Teachers West and then the rest in both the club’s men’s and women’s arms of rugby union.
Townsville’s premier club is undefeated in both divisions and that shows no sign of changing soon.
The Bulldogs’ men blitzed North Ward 55-7 on the back of centre Nick Poole’s four tries while the women dished out even worse punishment on the same club’s opposition.
The women Bulldogs roared in a 76-0 smackdown, with tryscoring doubles to Trinity Kent, Anjeleah Corrigan, Madison Holliday, Kristy Bolton and Katreene Odell.
Coach Terry Shiells, in charge of both teams, can afford to be pleased with the trajectory of the unbeaten senior Bulldogs, who have combined for 11 wins this season.
You’d never ask a coach to pick his favourite team – Shiells also coaches his grandson in Teachers West’s under-12s – but the veteran mentor lit up when asked to pull back the curtain on the success of the women’s team.
“We scored 44 points in the first so the ladies didn’t make a lot of errors in the first half of the game,” Townsville’s top coach reported.
“That probably sets you up for a reasonable game. We played a good 15-a-side game and they (North Ward) are quite good – we just played well.”
Among the team are a great number experiencing rugby union for the first time.
A swath of non-contact sporting backgrounds has not held back the team at all.
“We’ve got a big group and a lot of people who haven’t played until this year,” Shiells said.
“A couple of those have been away so they’ve probably played two or three games of football all their life – and not many have a rugby league background either. Most are from a soccer or netball background who have worked hard at training twice a week.”
Shiells was more humble about his men’s success.
The 48-point margin of victory is the greatest Teachers West has enjoyed over North Ward since the 2019 season.
Less than a month ago, Teachers West edged North Ward by 11 points.
Shiells won’t celebrate it because the margin of victory could have been even greater.
“It was fairly scrappy. The first half was fairly mistakeridden by both sides but in the second half we had a bit of a go,” he said.
“We had some opportunities in the first, we just didn’t execute as good as we’d like.
“We had a number of players (Josh Fletcher, Kailab Coventry among them) not playing.”
Shiells was impressed with the versatile Poole, who flashed power, skill, vision and footwork on his way to a fourtry outing in the No.12 jersey.
“He played well, in a juggling week of not having everyone,” the coach said.
“He’s been away and back at the club and playing a couple of more games this year. He always brings something when he’s available to play.”
Sam Doyle and Matthew Rauch scored hat-tricks for Brothers in 69-21 win over Burdekin while Brothers and Western Suburbs joined the winner’s circle in the women’s competition.