Special thanks to TCT and 1EE regular Hamsammich for providing the following reports from the triumphant efforts of the Harold Matthews and SG Ball on the weekend. His reports are especially appreciated by myself as I was unable to get out to any footy on the weekend due to an early season flu. Without further ado, here is the breakdown of our 34-26 Harold Matthews victory and 44-10 shellacking of the Steelers in the SG Ball!

It was all Parramatta in the first half of the match with us scoring all of our points and looking absolutely unstoppable in the process. The scoring started with Cliff Lea’aetoa scoring in the corner after a nice backline movement down our right side. Central Coast wonderkid Kyle Schneider converted from the sideline. Not long after we saw Wellington Seve’s consistent use of his size along with his amazing agility to score a try near the posts. Once again Schneider split the posts. Not long after William Kei scored his 16^th try for the year (that now puts him at 2 tries per match) after a brilliant kick return play from JP Nohra who offloaded to left winger Josh Boumelhem. After Schneider once again converted the score was already 18-0 after only 11 minutes. Cliff scored his 2^nd of the game after a nice cut out pass from Nohra. Schneider once again converted from the sideline. On the kick-off we started the set with a nice heads up play, Mark Tepu-Smith threw a pass to Josh Boumelhem who ran down the sideline before linking up with William Kei who was unfortunately not able to streak away himself. In the same set Josh Boumelhem scored after us running it on the last. Schneider missed the conversion, his only miss of the morning. Illawarra scored through Jalal Bazzaz who had the filthiest mullet I’ve ever seen, shaved top and sides with hair growing at the back. Ilawarra scored again through Alan Schoupp, goal missed. Finally, in the first half we score through Matt Doorey on the left and we go into half-time leading 34-10.

I won’t really comment much on the second half as we didn’t score a point with Illawarra running in a further 16 and us eventually coming out as winners 34-26. It was good to see Stefano Utoikamanu back on the field after injuring his shoulder, hopefully the big fella can stay on the field his presence in the middle will be huge for us going into the finals. From our side I was once impressed again by Kyle Schneider who ended up playing 3 different positions on the field, Mark Tepu-Smith who continually takes the ball up the guts but also has some nice ball-playing skills, Matt Doorey who is just a beast in attack and defence, and finally JP Nohra who I believe had his best game for us at fullback. From Illawarra I thought their best were Alan Schoupp who has a very wide base with a fair bit of speed, their lock and captain Ben Fulton who didn’t stop all game, and Jalal Bazzaz who ran hard and caused our defence problems every time he got the ball.

The SG Ball team took a little longer to start their scoring efforts, taking 10 minutes for Haze Dunster to score in the corner, Alex Seve missed the conversion from the sideline. The Steelers were next to score through a magical grab from Zac Lomax, with the teams tied up at 4 all. Super sub Michael Tupou burst onto a ball and barged his way through 2 defenders rattling the posts as he dived over. Seve converted and hit the WIN roof in doing so. In the ensuing set the Eels run 100+ metres for big Beni Valu to score next to the posts after a tough run from tall centre Ethan Parry. Unfortunately I didn’t keep any notes at this point but we went into half time leading 16-4. Early into the 2^nd half fullback Johnny Fonua was heavily concussed (he walked past me later and didn’t look in good condition) which forced us to move Turnbull to fullback, Afualo into the halves, Parry to left wing/centre, and unfortunately I can’t remember who shifted into right centre. Anyway, Tupou scored another top try near the posts with Seve converting. Next it was Alex’s turn after backing up from fantastic runs and offloads from captain Josh Carr and Joshua Curran. Centre-turned-half Tui Afualo burst through the heart of the Steelers defence seemingly going untouched to score underneath the posts and for the team to go ahead 40-10 with 6 minutes left on the clock. Finally to cap off the scoring Ethan Parry barged his way over after taking a penalty tap at the 10 metre line, conversion was unfortunately missed.

This was a huge game for the SG Ball team, they were coming up against an undefeated Illawarra outfit and had a couple of crucial players sidelined. It was a massive effort when you consider that 10/17 players that we named are still only 16 or 17. Not too sure on the ages of the Steelers players but other than Steve Dresler they were so much bigger than our boys. The stand-outs for mine in this game were Steve Dresler, I know Sixties has spoken a little bit about him in other posts but he truly is something special and he’s made a nice middle combination with Josh Curran. Michael Tupou has come off the bench brilliantly in all games, has so much speed for a big kid and would be making between 15-20 metres per hit-up especially on kick-offs. Adam Campbell, he started the year in our development squad but has found his way to start for the SG ball, his kicking game was on point and was catching lazy markers out all game. Also a big shout out to Adam Campbell’s dad, always there to cheer on the boys and along with Sean Keppie is constantly the loudest at the games.

If you liked this article, you might consider supporting The Cumberland Throw.