Rebels must unite after disjointed loss to Comets

The South Grafton Rebels had no one to blame but themselves as a costly opening to the second half led to a 14-point loss to the Coffs Harbour Comets.

TEAMMATE TIME: Brothers Tim and Joe Rigg celebrate Tim's try in the clash between the South Grafton Rebels and the Coffs Harbour Comets at McKittrick Park on Sunday. Picture: Mitchell Keenan

RUGBY LEAGUE: The South Grafton Rebels took a tough loss to league leaders Coffs Harbour Comets on Sunday and the home side were in the game up until a short disjointed period early in the second half left them undone.

The Comets ran away 36-22 winners in a game that had three lead changes and looked set to go down to the wire, but 18-points in under nine minutes following Grant Brown's departure to the sin-bin left the Rebels' hopes in ruins.

Acting as captain in the absence of Luke Welch, who is nursing a fractured eye-socket from the Macksville clash, was Grant Stevens who felt his side were wholly to blame for the end result.

"I think we let ourselves down, we obviously knew they were the benchmark and they're on top for a reason,” Stevens said.

"We made some poor decisions and a few might not have gone our way but in the end they the ground out the result.”

Brown is known for his passionate approach to the game and his enthusiasm often lifts the Rebels but a string of games with time in the sin-bin is proving difficult for Stevens and South Grafton out on the ground.

"We've got to be better than that, we can't play with twelve men for periods of the game because it obviously makes it really hard particularly against the top teams,” he said.

"Today in the first 20 minutes of the second half we forgot some of the fundamentals that we've been pulling off so well these last few weeks and that showed on the scoreboard.”

Tim Rigg touches down in the clash between the South Grafton Rebels and the Coffs Harbour Comets at McKittrick Park on Sunday. Picture: Mitchell Keenan

"We definitely snapped back into it later in that second half and got a few tries but when they put 18-points on you in under nine minutes it's always going to be hard to get back in the game.”

While the loss of Brown had an immediate impact on the game, Stevens believes it came down to more than the missing man.

"I think our communication shut down and we dropped our heads when he went and we went away from what we did so well in the first half,” he said.

"I thought we were the better side in that first 40-minutes, we had some small mistakes that they got tries from early on but it really did come down to that first bit of the second half at the end of the day.”

The Rebels now turn their attention to a second successive home game on Sunday when they host the Orara Valley Axemen.

"We'll just be focusing on trying to get the little things right, we'll work on our ruck and slowing the play the ball down,” he said.

Orara Valley have had a tough season but they will be riding a high off the back of a rare win after beating the Macksville Sea Eagles 30-24 at Coramba.

Stevens confident his side can get the job done against the Axemen as long as they focus on the job as a unit.

"Most importantly we just need to focus on playing for each other,” he said.

"We were so good at it last week and that was probably our best performance all year in Macksville so we need to keep sticking to that and working as a team to keep winning games.”

South Grafton will face a difficult run in to the finals with their last two games featuring third and second placed Sawtell and Grafton.

Originally published as Rebels must unite after disjointed loss to Comets