Eden Tigers RLFC News Article

Undermanned Tiger Cubs do us Proud

June 28th 2009

Sunday saw the second placed under 18 Tigers face up to the premiership front runners and hot shot Bega Roosters side in Bega.The Tigers fronted up with a bare thirteen including under 16's Dylan Fletcher and Andrew Evelyn, and again missing key big forwards. The Bega side had a full 17 man squad.
The game started at a frantic pace and the Eden boys showed great pluck to hold the Bega attack at bay for several attacking raids. Eventually Bega spread the ball wide after being unable to crack Eden up the middle. This tactic was employed more often as the first half went on - Eden's defenders were gallant and didn't take a backwards step, but as the first half went further the Tigers began to tire. Toby Timms was showing his usual enterprise in attack. It is probably unfair to mention any individuals in what was a dead set gutsy effort , but forwards Nick Rowe, John Kendall, Cory Stewart, John Hunt and Matt Evelyn tackled themselves to a standstill.

the Eden Under 18s trying to shut down another Bega break

By half time the home side had run in five tries for a 24-0 lead, but coach Col Clarke was lavish in his praise for the side at half time and urged them to go through the pain barrier and keep giving their all. The players did just that, and showed great spirit to move up in defence and put big hits on their bigger opponrnts.Even when Bega had scored two further tries they were still keen to hit the ball up when in possession, and were finally rewarded for their gutsy efforts when Matt Evelyn darted over after another huge Kendall hit up.
The final score was 46-6, but the score in no way indicated the intensity of the effort put in by the gutsy Tigers. With a few bench players and the benefit of one or two of the 50-50 calls that have eluded us for the past couple of games this side can still give the premiership a big shake. Player's player was Pixie Geraghty but really we had 13 stand outs in what was a fantastic effort.