from WA Reds: www.waredsrugbyleague.com.au
Date: 25/05/2008Reds Down, But Turn The Corner
REDS DOWN, BUT TURN THE CORNER
While going down to Shellharbour Marlins on the east coast, the WA Reds turned out one of their better showings in recent weeks with a close game until the 67 minute mark when five tough penalties against the team led to three converted tries to the Marlins and resulted in a 36 to 16 loss.
The Reds went into half time 16 all and were still just two points adrift at 16 18 well into the second half when they were on the wrong side of a few decisions which made the difference in the end.
The talk before the game was how the Reds would shape up against the Wendell Sailor influence and who would take him on. In the end, Sailor took on a roving role and the efforts by the Reds meant there was no real impact made by the former Australian representative player. Although his presence did lift the home side it was Dragons team mate Ben Ellis who made the difference with two tries against his name.
General Manager Bill Nosworthy commented that while the boys went down, he had comfort in the way the game was played and the effort put in.
We needed to turn around some of the fundamental parts of our game, and we did that tonight. Our backs controlled the game better and while we made some handling errors, it certainly was a big improvement from where we have been. It was disappointing to end up with the loss we had and the team did not deserve to lose that way.
With penalties at 10 to 4 against and the majority coming at the end, it was not necessarily the way the team played that affected the loss. In fact, with the decisions going the right way, it could have very easily been the final score going to the Reds.
Tries for the Reds came from Jason Godecke, Ben Lindegaard and Heath Egglestone with Craig Phillis putting in 2 goals from 3 attempts.
The team is away again next week against the Belrose Eagles before playing the next four out of five weeks at home.
I was there amigo and it was another good turn out on a cold night, sometimes the game appeared as if neither team knew what the word 'defence' meant but the Reds nearly stole it from the Marlins.....there was a couple of Reds supporters sitting in front of where I was standing, good to see them travel so far! The Dell didn't do much the whole match to be honest...