U11 Jets 12 def South Tweed Bears 10

Today started differently for the boys with the Jets receiving the ball from the kickoff and from some great runs they were attacking the Bears line and looked certain to score on the first set of tackles when Sam P spilt the ball with the line wide open and coach Brian thought “here we go again”.

A few sets later after good organisation from Josh and strong runs from the Big Man Bryce, Ethan, Mitch and Ronan the boys were in good field position and Sam P was able to make amends for earlier and sneak a try in the corner which was converted for a 6-0 lead.

The rest of the half didn’t display our best in defence as the boys did not talk or move up to the big South Tweed forwards who made easy ground allowing South Tweed to post two tries for a 10 to 6 South Tweed lead at halftime.

After a pep talk from Brian the boys came out in the second half with more purpose in defence and the talk could be heard from the sideline. This led to good field position which allowed Ethan to crash over which was converted for a 12 – 10 lead to Jets.

For the rest of the half South Tweed gave the Bilambil supporters a few frights but the Jets defence held strong especially on their own try line with the Bears players being held up over the Jets line numerous times.

Coach Brian spoke after the game about the better talk and defence which stopped the Bears from scoring for the entire second half, though there is still plenty of room for improvement.

The handling was reasonable considering the wet conditions which allowed the team to build pressure on the Bears. We need to be able to continue this for the rest of the season.

Brian was happy with all the boys today especially Kentaro’s handling in the wet and a couple of good weaving runs he made and also Luke making himself available even though he had a bad cold.

Brian made special mention of Jesse’s and Ethan’s effort and the Big Mans strong runs which opened the game up for the Jets.

But the Man of Match went to Josh for the way he led the team around the field as he has done since moving into the halfback position. The parents were very sympathetic to Sharon and Gordon as they were awarded the muddy jumpers for Josh’s efforts.

Congratulations to Sam Delaney who ran a 4Km fun run as part of the Gold Coast marathon before playing and came 25^th out of 1000 starters.

There will be no training this week coming and will resume on Tuesday 10^th of July

I feel sorry for coach Jeff who has been unable to attend about 3 games in 2 years and the boys have seemed to scrape over the line on all these occasions.

Hope the boys continue their improvement and can finish the season off with a few more wins and most of all that they enjoy themselves.

U12 Bilambil  20 def TC Raiders Green 10
 
We expected this to be hard contest as the Raiders have some big hard running boppers. A great start saw us leading 14-0 at half time with our forwards led by Taite and Hank contolling the play with excellent defence and strong runs.
 
Raiders are a good side so we expected a tough second half which did happen with Raiders scoring two tries to make the score 14-10. The boys need to recognise that the opposition are lifting and match that intensity so as not to give the coaching staff more grey hairs.
 
The game settled into a good contest with the Jets getting good field position with great kicks from Ryan followed by excellent defence, then letting our attack work the opposition over to finish with a try to Israel after a great run by Ethan scattered the Raiders defence, Ryan read the play perfectly to move the ball wide left for the try, just an excellent team effort.
 
So many good performances with Taite having his best ever game, Jaxon's busy display from hooker with good passes tackling and kick chase really stood out in the coaches mind.
Taj M worked tirelessly and combined well with Ethan,Liam and Israel. They all made heaps of metres especially when they attacked after one of Hanks many awesome hitups.
 
Man of the Match went to Ryan Livingstone, the halfback position is very difficult to play in mod league but Ryan's performance was the best I've seen by a number seven. His defence was tenacious as usual along with his dicision making on when and where to attack and a much improved kicking game which turned the tide in the second half.
 
Great to hear the boys all talking about the team effort and each player doing their job to get us home. Well done lads.
 
Tries: Israel Karauti, Hank Sherriff, Luke Robinson and Ryan Livingstone.
 
Goals: Taj Mickley and Jaxon Mye-Saunders.
 
Cheers  Lex. 

U14 Bilambil 16 def Seagulls 12 
 
The boys of both teams travelled to the Raiders field for the round 11 clash.  Last week saw a good team effort by the boys against a team lower on the ladder.  This week the boys met the team on top of the ladder.  Having lost last week for the first time this year we expected Seagulls to come out firing, which is what they did.  An early try against us saw the boys standing in the in-goal in the first set.  The boys were honest about what had happened and committed to not let it happen again.  To their great credit that is what they did.
 
From then on for most of the game the defensive gave a straight line.  Energy in moving up and working in with your mates saw only a few line breaks which were shut down by further effort.  The forwards started punching holes in the Seagulls defence  and with excellent backing up led to Bilambil’s first two tries.
 
In the second half Seagulls lifted and the game was tight at 16-12 with Seagulls putting the pressure on.  A series of penalties saw the team defending their half and their line for the last 5 minutes with the Jet Wall holding fast.  The boys lining up and refusing to give in was extremely pleasing.  
 
A few injuries during the game had some players having to spend more time on the paddock rather than getting that well earned rest and they stood up to the task.  At this time Grant’s nose may not be the best but he has recovered, Jack Rowles is no longer trying to cough up a lung, Sandon and Sean’s knees seem to be OK.  We are still waiting to hear about Koby’s hand.
 
The referee gave Sean the 3 points, Rem from Seagulls the 2 and Steve the 1.  I don’t think anyone would disagree.  Once again the whole team did their jobs and put in the effort.  It is difficult single out any one individual, however Sandon’s hard running and Grant’s return to the field were inspirational.
 
Whilst it is known that this team has some great talent, it is very pleasing to watch them now start to play as a team. We are now looking at a team that has come together as a unit and will continue to do better and better in the weeks to come. The boys effort to support each other can clearly be seen, the coaching staff will continue to work on the execution for what we honestly believe is the best team in the competition.
 
It was a fantastic win to the boys however the highlight of the game was that every player came off the field knowing that they did their best to assist in achieving the desired result
 
Mark, Grant and Mick.

U10 Bilambil def Mullum

Last Saturday we went to Cudgen to play the Giants from Mullum. They were a few short so we lent them three boys to get a game on. Lets just say the second half was much better than the first. There were tries a plenty and the boys played well. We have had a problem all year with our goal kicking and it may hurt us one day as much as we joked about it on Saturday. Two from twelve is not good and we are less than 50% on any other day. Get out there and practice boys.

Each of the boys are making steady progress coming into the back end of the year. We will continue to work on the simple things whilst adding content in to challenge them but it really is as Jack Gibson once said. "It's a simple game. Run hard. Tackle hard."

Training back on next Tuesday 4.30pm

Cheers

Jeff