North Beach Sea Eagles 42 – Kwinana Titans 12
By PETER ROWE
A second half performance turned it around for North Beach as they won their first game of the season to defeat the Kwinana Titans in Round 6 of the Fuel to Go & Play Premiership at Blueforce Park on Saturday.
The visitors had jumped to an early lead with three first half tries before the Sea Eagles reset and powered their way to victory.
“We didn’t complete our sets in that first half. Kwinana put us under a lot of pressure and we could only manage 45 per cent completions,” coach Marty Collis said.
‘We had a discussion at the break, all positive and it was much better in the second half – 80 per cent.”
The Sea Eagles took hold of the game, got on a roll and in seven sets, scored four times.
A Dennis Tutupou double had given the Titans that first half lead before Brayden Worley and Riley Bradley saw the teams at 12-8 on the first half siren.
Halfback Kurtis Everett was first on the board after the break and centre Tane Dodunski was quick to follow.
Backrower Tana Mareta was next to cross before fullback Te Ra Ahurri sparked into life with a quick double.
Four minutes from time Tom McIlhatton found the whitewash and Brayden Worley, after opening the scoring, finished the day with a minute to go.
“I told them at halftime to take some ownership as the opportunity was there to do so,” Collis said.
Kallum Gulliver Brown returned to the side after injury and was rewarded with the best on ground for a solid performance. Fullback Ahurri was also named in post match presentations, as was new recruit Ollie Butcher, recently arrived from the Noosa Pirates in Queensland.
“KGB played 80 minutes in the middles. He was very influential in our go forward,” Collis added.
“We’ve got the monkey off our back, it was really good to get a win and we can now look forward.”