Maitland Blacks beaten by last-play try by Southern Beaches

Leading 20-17 the Blacks held out several waves of attack by Beaches, until a quick play down the short side from a penalty caught Maitland short on numbers and with just seconds to play, Beaches crossed for a five-pointer.

The referee blew the final whistle as the conversion attempt was waved away.

“It’s a cruel way to lose it right at the end like that after such a fantastic effort to get back in the lead,” Blacks co-coach Mick Hickling said.

“In the end we were probably 20 seconds away from holding them out. A couple of errors kept them down our end and we just couldn’t get the numbers across when they took a quick tap from a penalty.

“It would have been great to start the season with a home-win, but we showed plenty today. I thought all our recruits played very well, Brookesy (Travis Brooke) ended up with two tries, Sap (Sapatia Peniata) was strong and James Robinson gave us the advantage in the scrum.

“Jono O’Toole (150^th game) was terrific at half-back and the boys who came up in the backs did well. James Curran was very good in particular with his defence.”

The Blacks had scored 20 unanswered points starting in the shadows of half-time when new Kiwi recruit Brooke crossed for the first of his two tries.

Brooke scored again shortly after the break. Jye Estatheo converted both tries and kicked two penalties to see the Blacks take the lead after being down 17-0 in a scratchy start to the game.

The Blacks won the scrum battle in the second half led by Irishman Robinson. The Blacks also dominated the advantage line in both attack and defence with centre pairing Estatheo and Josh Logan repeatedly turning defence into attack with strong runs..

Man-of-the-match and players’ player James Curran created several turnovers with bone-jarring tackles coming quickly off the line to deny Southern Beaches any space in attack.

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