James Bradley continued his outstanding start to the season with his second hat-trick in as many weeks as a slick Maitland Pickers beat The Entrance 38-12.
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After scoring the opening try of the season for the Pickers in their 24-10 win against Central, Bradley now has seven tries from three games.
"Jimmy Bradley with three tries was really good in that first half," Pickers coach Matt Lantry said of an impressive performance at times marred by handling errors.
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The Pickers completed at just 55 per cent in the first half and raised it to 65 per cent in the second, still well below what the side expects of themselves.
"We scored some nice tries, we did some good things with the ball and I thought our performance was a lot better than last week in the energy levels we spoke about," Lantry said.
"The negatives are the errors. It's early days and I'm happy to tick those wins because if you don't start this competition well you are only ever a week away from a COVID breakout, so it's like money in the bank for us at the moment just to set us up for anything that may happen down the track.
"We need to improve with the ball, concentrate a bit better and minimise some of the unforced errors."
Lantry said he didn't believe it was complacency, rather a lack of concentration and attention to detail that led to errors on three consecutive returns from tries.
"The pleasing thing is 38 points and the way we defended. The way The Entrance scored their tries, there were two off kicks and the other one was off a ball that bounced and the centre poked it ahead and runs 70 metres to score.
"Opening weeks of the competition, we conceded six points week one, 10 points week two and 12 points week three which is probably where we had set our goals as far as conceding points."
Several Tigers players were forced to wear Maitland's white away strip when it was discovered that they didn't have a full set of jerseys in their kit.
"The boys said that when it was frantic you would see the Pickers V in the black and the green, a jersey they are familiar with, and it just put them off a little bit," Lantry said. "But it wasn't a major issue and we were glad to help The Entrance out."
The Pickers went into the game without Sam Anderson, who was out with COVID, and his place in the starting line up was taken by Peter Wilson with Ethan Edwards coming into the 17 to make his first grade debut.
"Ethan got on at the 50 minute mark and played 30 minutes straight," Lantry said.
"I was really happy with his performance, he has toiled away for the past two years and been our most consistent performer in reserve grade.
"You don't hear boo from him, he just gets on with the job. There would be other first grade squads who would love an Ethan Edwards in their starting 17.
"He had a debut which he can sit back and look fondly on. He even converted at fulltime from about 10 metres in from touch.
"The boys just sent him 'the tee and said you're on debut you're kicking'.
"I think he will leave his career at one from one."
Lantry was impressed with Peter Wilson, Reid Alchin and rated Gary Anderson the Pickers' best.
"I thought Peter Wilson's start to the game was really good, he really troubled them with some leg speed around the middle third," he said.
"I thought Reid Alchin played his best game for us on the weekend. He got through 80 minutes and you can see his gradual improvement week from week. I'm really looking forward to seeing what Reid can do for us again in the coming weeks.
"Gary Anderson was our pick as our best player.
"Gaz had been a bit below his best in the first three weeks and we challenged him a bit through the week and set him some goals.
"He came out and responded really well, it was the Gary Anderson of old. He was outstanding, particularly with his yardage carries and getting our sets started."
