First Grade
Brothers 24 – 11 Newport

Another good hit out for the Brothers 1st XV last weekend for the second round of the competition. It was a spirited performance by both sides with Newport starting well scoring early and leading Brothers to the break 11-5 after a late penalty try to Brothers following sustained forward pressure. Midway during the second half , lead by a standout performance by Jone saw Brothers forwards start to dominate the rucks and possession forcing Newport to defend their line for most of the half. Continued forward pressure soon converted with tries to Joey, Brooksie and Blackie with conversions by Blackie making up the Brothers points.

Vinnie made a return from injury replacing Moisey in the second half.

After a slow start to the game, Brothers dominated the second half, again showing strong indications of building a solid foundation early in the season.

Player Points
Jone: 3
Blacky: 2
Joey: 1

Scorers
Moisey 1 try
Brooksie 1 try
Joey 1 try
Blacky 2 * conv

Second Grade
Awaiting Report

Player Points
Harry: 3
Karl : 2
Stu : 1

Dunc Raines 1 try
Paul Roz 1 try
Stu 1 conv

Colts
vs Newport Venue; Roseville Chase Loss 39 – 3

Best & Fairest:
3 Points; Arthur Maikin
2 Points; Justin Gates
1 Point; Nathan Timbrell

Penalty Goal; Nathan Lee and the 2 points from the referee

Well this was certainly the welcome to 2nd Division and wake up call we may have needed, a very tough day at the office against a well drilled and well prepared side who won the comp last year. Losing Marc Lava in the first minute of the game and having to go uncontested which then saw us lose a man wasn’t the start we needed. Despite being undermanned we did tough out long passages of play but let ourselves down with some of the simple stuff, such as tackling around the legs. These guys certainly are not unbeatable and our backs showed that we could easily mach it with what they had to offer if we could just find the go forward platform. Whilst I am proud of the effort when we were up against it, it is the case that we made them look good in several facets of play. Notably some players followed Gatesy’s lead and lifted their work rate to make up for our deficiencies, it was great to see Mark Toma fire up again. Strong running in the backs from the likes of Rory Halliday and Arthur Maikin, who also contributed solidly in defence.
Every season can have its lulls and I hope to prove that Saturday was one of ours. As a manager I apologise for the lack of organsiation pre game and I can lift our game here providing you solid support before the whistle. Please get to training on Tuesday guys and bring as many mates down as you can, we need this squad to build.

Zumba Zumba Zey

Ado Brannan
Colts Manager

Third Grade
Brothers 10 – 13 Newport

This was an incredibly close fought contest by two evenly matched teams.
However as the game went on Brothers got more and more in control and our excellent forward platform started to domainte.
Ned Brown was incredibly unlucky to score a try that was disallowed for crossing/interference when we were 5 points up.
After earlier tries from Matty Cullen, and Gav Opie that would have sealed the game.
However when heavily under the cosh, Newport got hold of the ball in their own 22 and booted it aimlessly upfield.
A couple of lucky bounces later and the Newport winger was racing for our line unopposed, a couple of last ditch tackles were made but Newport kept the ball alive and scored a try to level the game at ten apiece.
Brothers indiscpiline then cost them when they gave a penalty away from about 30 yards.
Newport converted the penalty and won the game by three.
A close fought battle but lessons to be learnt in closing out a game.

Player Points
Karl: 3 – Scrummaged hard, took a ton of hit ups. got go forward momentum all the time.
Ned : 2 – Incredibly unlucky not to score that try to seal the game off. Excellent game from Brownie, good to have him back.
Tommy C: 1 – Some excellent cameos on the wing, unlucky as well not to score after one excellent break in particular.

Scorers
Matt C: 1 try
Gav Opie: 1 try

Fourth Grade
Brothers 7 – 26 Newport

If we had started the first half like the second half we would have given ourselves a chance.
But, instead we decided not to tackle their backs. And in doing so let them off load, and keep the ball alive.
This pretty much led to our own destruction.
Four tries in the first half (albeit against a strong running second grade back line) won it for them.
However, our second half showing was considerably better. We started getting some phases.
We also started tackling low and cutting down their options.
When we did build phases it led to Brad’s well taken try (from a Summers offload of all people!)
It also led to a complete length of the field blitz that was only cut short by the full time whistle.
Plenty to digest there, but really we need to train together, and we need to start each game prepared, and with our game plan in mind.
We also need to keep the ball better.

Player Points
Fordie : 3 – you can tell he’s a ref, as he knows all the rules! But he dominated and lead by example. Inspiring.
Tuomas : 2 – Gave 100%, amazing scrummaging from a novice. Got stuck in in the loose too, amazing improvement.
Tommy C: 1 – Tries his best to coordinate a back line with very little ball… Defence was excellent.

Scorers
Brad: 1 try
Niall: 1 conv