Errors costs Seagulls

The inclusion of six Gold Coast Titan’s players wasn’t enough to help Tweed Heads overcome Ipswich at Piggabeen Sports yesterday with the Jets cruising to a 34-12 victory.

The Seagulls got off to the perfect start, scoring the first try of the game through Titan’s back-rower Jai Ingram. The home side played some good attacking football, threatening the finals-bound Jets every time they had the ball. However their momentum didn’t last long with Ipswich taking control of the game after the opening 15 minutes.

Ipswich didn’t wait to capitalise on their possession, with their signature side-to-side ball movement causing trouble for the Tweed defence, Richard Pandia crashing over to score the first try of the day for the away side. Titans playmaker Jamal Fogarty said the Jets unique style of play was difficult to combat, with the long periods in defence taking their toll.

“They tried to hold the ball for a period of time to try and tire us out and it pretty much worked for them yesterday,” Fogarty said.

“It’s hard to defend when they make you chase one bloke from one side of the field to the other, playing like that empties your tank pretty quickly.”

Once they scored their first, Ipswich made the most of their momentum, crossing the line three more times before half-time to go into the break with a 20-6 lead. Fogarty said the long time spent defending made it hard to make a difference in attack.

“You find you don’t have much petrol in the tank for attack because you’re defending for so long,” Fogarty said.

“Even when we got the ball we didn’t have it for long because we made too many errors and gave the ball straight back to them which just played into their hands.”

The second half carried on in the same manner as the first, with the Jets dominating possession and forcing the Seagulls to defend for long periods. The scoreline was a mirror image of the first 40 minutes, Ipswich running in three tries to one.

The Titans contingent of Leva Li, Jai Ingram and Matt Robinson all played their part, while Fogarty singled out under-20s players Anthony Colman and Shane Gillham for their impact off the bench.

“They fitted in and didn’t look out of place against the big boys at all, they only had limited minutes but made an impact when they did come on,” Fogarty said.

“The other boys went well and did their job like usual. Leva was really strong with his carries, Jingles (Ingram) went well and scored the first try of the day for us, Robbo (Robinson) was really strong defensively for us in the middle and does what he always does week in week out.”

With finals out of reach, Fogarty said the Seagulls will put a big focus on ball security when they travel up the highway to take on Norths at Bishop Park for their final game of the season.

“We’ve got to work on holding the ball and not making so many errors, the Jets got over the line too easy so we need to take more pride in our defence and try and finish the season on a high,” he said.

The Burleigh Bears will finish their season in Port Moresby when they take on the second placed PNG Hunters on Sunday afternoon.

IPSWICH JETS 34 (Marmin Barba 3, Richard Pandia 2, Brandon McGrady tries; Carlin Anderson 5 goals) def TWEED HEADS SEAGULLS 12 (Shaun Carney, Jai Ingram tries; Jamal Fogarty 2 goals) at Piggabeen Sports.

Tweed Heads Seagulls: 1. Ali Grant 2. Nathanael Barnes 3. James Wood (c) 4. Shaun Carney 5. Leva Li 6. Jamal Fogarty 7. Sam Foster 8. Will Bugden 9. Sam Meskell 18. Matt Robinson 11. Jai Ingram 12. Blake Anderson 13. Sam Saville 14. Ricardo Parata 15. Shane Gillham 16. Dane Clarke 17. Anthony Colman 

INTRUST SUPER CUP

POINTS TABLE AFTER ROUND 24