Silktails secures 26-16 victory in style
THE Kaiviti Silktails secured a thrilling 26-16 victory over Blacktown Workers Sea Eagles after staging a second half comeback at H.E Laybutt Sporting Complex on Wednesday.
In a postponed match from Round Two, a strong Silktails team came from an eight-point deficit at half time to win by 10 points.
A hat-trick From Blacktown Workers winger was not enough to secure a victory for the Sea Eagles after the Silktails ran riot in the second half and dominated in attack.
Both sides were guilty of errors to start the match with Blacktown capitalising off a Silktails mistake to score the first points of the match through Clayton.
The conversion attempt was waved away to leave the home team up 4-0.
The Silktails were reduced to 12 players after Josua Waqavesi was sin binned for a professional foul paving the way for Zane Harris to put Kane Allan through the defensive line to score.
The conversion attempt was waved away but the Sea Eagles were up 8-0.
Blacktown Workers were able to capitalise off another Silktails error after Clayton went over to score his second try of the night to extend the lead to 12-0.
Silktails halfback Waisale Nayavucere opened up the scoring for the visitors but the conversion attempt was unsuccessful.
The Silktails missed another opportunity to land a goal through a penalty kick to be trailing 12-4 at half-time.
The Silktails started the second half strongly with Peni Tagituimua finding Akuila Tavakaturaga in support who went over to score a four pointer.
The conversion was successful to leave Blacktown clinging to a 12-10 lead.
Clayton continued to impress with his speed on the sideline and scored his hat-trick for the home side with the conversion unsuccessful.
The conversion was waved away but the Sea Eagles were back to a converted try in front at 16-10.
Silktails’ Sunia Naruma scored a converted try to level the scores at 16-all before a crucial error from Blacktown in the final 10 minutes of the match saw momentum swing in favour of the visitors.
After a good attacking play, Ratu Turagaca beat five defenders to score and award the Silktails the lead for the first time in the game.
The conversion was successful to put the Silktails up 22-16.
In the final minute of the game, Ropate Tobe found a gap in the middle and ran more than 40 metres to put an exclamation mark on the victory.