Sea Eagles pay for mistakes

YOU couldn't fault their effort but there was a clear gulf in defensive quality between Sunshine Coast and Tweed Heads yesterday.

The Sunshine Coast defence was kept busy against Tweed Heads at Stockland Park. Picture: JOHN Mccutcheon

YOU couldn’t fault their effort but there was a clear gulf in defensive quality between Sunshine Coast and Tweed Heads yesterday.

The Sea Eagles lost 44-10 to the competition leaders in their first home match of the Intrust Super Cup season.

Simple defensive errors were their biggest enemy with Tweed’s dummy-half runners slicing through the ruck numerous times and it’s no secret the Sea Eagles’s chances of winning a match will quickly increase as soon as they tighten up their defence around the ruck.

“We’ve worked extremely hard in the off-season on our marker defence,” assistant coach Nick Paterson said afterwards.

“When you get caught at marker like that it’s a little bit disappointing for the coaches and individuals because we’ve done so much work on it.

“I think we’re up for the physical side of the game. It’s a matter of us executing what we want to do and at times we don’t do that.

“If we stick to the game plan tonight I’ve got no doubt we’re as equal a team as them.”

It didn’t look good for Sunshine Coast from the outset when Tweed winger Nathanael Barnes ran the length of the field with his side’s first touch of the ball.

Sea Eagles fullback Hughie Stanley levelled the scores at 4-all a short time later when he pounced on a Nick Swan grubber before teammate Callum Klein was poleaxed by Seagulls centre Dominique Peyroux after latching on to a hospital ball.

Sunshine Coast could have headed into the break trailing by just 10-4 but two late tries gave the visitors a healthy 20-4 buffer at the break.

Barnes snatched his second early in the second half before Titans hooker Kayne Lawton showed his talent on one of many line breaks from dummy-half.

When Barnes completed his hat-trick the score was 38-4 but Stanley made something out of nothing for his second and a 38-10 scoreline.

Josh Starling strolled through from marker for the final points of the game and Paterson said the Sea Eagles’ brief lapses in defence had cost them.

“We get to patches in the game where we’re going really well and we let ourselves down with the basic errors in defence,” he said.

“The points come too quick and fast against us and we can’t seem to get ourselves in a position to rectify that situation.”

Originally published as Sea Eagles pay for mistakes