Kwinana Titans 14 – Rockingham Sharks 28
By PETER ROWE
A halftime blast that almost took the paint of the dressing room walls from skipper Chris Siddons saw the Rockingham Sharks emerge victorious in their Fuel to Go & Play Premiership clash with Kwinana Titans at Wellard Oval in horrendous weather on Saturday afternoon.
The predicted storm hit the oval early in the first half with high winds and horizontal rain leaving both sides struggling to hold on to the football.
Rockingham had plenty of possession but couldn’t convert and when Siddons was sin-binned eight minutes from halftime the home side took advantage of the extra man and found space on the left edge to open the scoring through winger Scott Turner.
The gap could have been wider had the Titans converted a penalty, but the wind denied them before Siddons’ speech woke his team up.
“He just told everyone the performance wasn’t good enough in a way only Siddo can,” coach Reece Potter said.
“It was very loud and passionate.”
It worked, because within a minute of the restart centre Jayden Cronin found space down the right to bring the sides level.
And three minutes later they were in front when fullback Detroit Tamanui blew through a hole in the Kwinana defence to race away to score under the posts.
“Detroit was outstanding,” Potter said. “He got 14 of our 17 player votes for best on field. A superb effort.”
Backrower Terrence Rameka was also outstanding in that second half, adding a third Sharks score minutes later as the visitors took control of the game in atrocious weather conditions.
And when centre Vili Tiomai scored another with barely eight minutes of the second half completed the Sharks were on a roll.
“We didn’t match up in that period,” Titans coach Lewis Samuels said. “We spoke about it at halftime and discussed what we had to do, but the response wasn’t what I wanted.”
Tiomali made it a double as the light faded and the rain continued before the Titans found second wind and started a comeback.
“We dropped off in that period of the game. It was disappointing to concede points and let them back in,” Potter said.
Two tries from Jona Mason and Cordelle Dunnicliffe closed the gap after a series of errors from the Sharks close to their own try line.
Down to 12 men after prop Lewis Hough was dismissed, Rameka had the final word though, breaking through a tired defence with a minute on the clock to race 40 metres to score.
“It was a poor first half and again late in the second half but we weathered the storm better and came away with the points,” Potter added.
“A game of two halves with the weather and not the best footy, but we got there.”
Samuels named backrower Dylan Were his MVP, closely followed by lock Murray Kopa and Dunnicliffe.
“Dylan put in 80 minutes in the second row and was awesome and Murray’s tackling was unreal,” Samuels said.
“I had no bench for much of the second half and it took its toll. We are still trying to find our way and increasing the amount of time we have competitively in a game. It started at 20 minutes and now perhaps we are at 40, so we’re improving.”
