The Maitland Pickers showed plenty of heart, but South Newcastle exposed the gulf between the two teams in a devastating 10 minute onslaught scoring three tries straight after half-time.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The Pickers had led 16-12 just before the break, but overplayed their hand in their own half on the kick return to allow Souths to score with two minutes to play.
It was a familiar story for the young Pickers and so, unfortunately, was the defensive lapse immediately after half-time on Old Boys Day at Coronation Oval on Saturday.
“In the past two weeks we have been within two points of two of the top three teams at the break only to be blown away straight after half-time,” Pickers coach Trevor Ott said.
“We’ve put on 26 and 24 points against those top two teams so there is something to build on
“But we are a 30-40 minute football team at the moment.
“Given another pre-season to strengthen the young blokes core strength and fitness base and with the injection of a few quality players around them we can be an 80 minute team.
“We are playing well in patches, but at stages of the game we just do not have the core strength and fitness to sustain the effort and we leak points.
“We only completed two of our first nine sets after half-time. We surrendered too much ball to Souths in our own half and to their credit like a good team they took advantage of it.
“We dropped ball and the 50-50 decisions don’t seem to go our way. There were a couple of penalties awarded against us for what I thought were terrific tackles which forced a turn over.”
Maitland had the best of the first half with Pat Robards scoring the Pickers’ opening try with a strong solo run to quickly counter an early converted Lions try.
The game see-sawed but some bone-crunching tackles had the Lions rattled and stuck in their own half, leading to tries to Liam Faughlin and Steve Waetford.
A double to Faughlin was denied when the touch judge ruled there had been a knock-on in the play.
Waetford crossed after a spectacular pass from Jarrod Smith from a horizontal position just centimetres from the ground.
Pat Robards won the players’ player award and Steve Waetford, Jacob Sinclair and Geordie Connelly all had strong games.
First grade
South Newcastle 46 def Maitland 26
South Newcastle Scorers - J Lawrence 2, J Flanagan, W Heta, J Taylor, L Higgins, B Roose, L Higgins. Goals - W Heta 7.
Maitland Scorers - L Faughlin, C Edwards, B Jenkins, P Robards, S Waetford. Goals - G Connelly 2, L Faughlin 1.
Reserve Grade
South Newcastle 22 def Maitland 18
Open Grade
South Newcastle 24 def Maitland 22
Under 19s
South Newcastle 34 def Maitland 10
