Winger up to speed for Burleigh debut
JAKE Carl woke up on Saturday afternoon with no idea he would make his Queensland Cup debut 24 hours later and celebrate it by scoring a hattrick in a big Burleigh win.
“I finished night shift, woke up (on Saturday) at 1.30pm and found out and had to come down to captains’ run straight away,” said the police officer.
Late withdrawals by Henare Wells (hamstring) and Troy Leo (illness) opened the door for Carl, who spent the previous two seasons in Bundaberg. The winger’s happy debut capped a 44-0 win for the Bears against a diabolical Ipswich outfit at Pizzey Park yesterday.
Carl was in the right place at the right time when secondrower Dylan Kelly leapt for a Harry Siejka cross-field kick and offloaded to the unmarked right winger.
The 24-year-old then plucked a long-range intercept try before a Dallas Wells chip handed him his third.
But he saved his best effort for six minutes from full-time, producing dazzling speed to chase down opposite winger Michael Purcell over 90m to prevent an intercept try.
“Unbelievable. They call him the fastest man in rugby league that Purcell but maybe Jake Carl has got him (covered),” Bears coach Jimmy Lenihan smiled.
Carl added: “The boys, we made a goal with about 20 to go not to have any points leaked. I needed to put that effort in and thankfully I got there and stopped him.”
The Bears were dominant across the field: Big men such as Nate Peteru proved a handful, hooker Pat Politoni won man of the match after sitting the entire Titans game on the bench on Friday night and their halves kicked sublimely to force dropouts.
By full-time, Ipswich’s persistent short kick-offs had become laughable.
At Tweed Heads, the Seagulls crashed to a 50-8 loss to Townsville. Blackhawks winger Jonathon Reuben bagged four tries.