Four-try hauls, huge scores: Mojo Homes Illawarra Cup round seven wrap and 25+ photo gallery
Two players picked up four tries each as we witnessed monster scorelines in round seven of the Illawarra Cup. Check out the full round wrap, as well as 25+ photos from around the grounds.
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Back from a week off, it seemed as though teams were making up for time lost by putting on the biggest round of scoring we’ve had in the Mojo Homes Illawarra Cup in 2023.
A whopping 35 tries were scored across three games of footy in the Illawarra over the weekend.
Naturally this meant some players were hauling tries, with two players picking up four tries a piece.
Check out the full round wrap and some of the best snaps from around the grounds.
Devils go clear at the top
Western Suburbs Devils have put a three point buffer between themselves and second place at the peak of the Illawarra Cup ladder after a 40-26 victory over De La Salle.
The round two meeting between these two sides ended in a 20-all stalemate, but this time round the Devils were able to flex their muscles to ensure they left Sid Parrish Park still undefeated.
In a twelve try game, Wests managed to maintain the advantage over De La for the entirety of proceedings, kicking this off with two early tries, first to centre Colby Pellow after a nice left to right spread, followed up by Joseph Dickson burrowing his way over off a short ball from Mitch Porter.
Justin Rodrigues was as usual at the heart of all things good for the Devils, picking up a try after he sold the defenders with a mean show-and-go to the line.
Rodrigues also picked up two assists, first putting Levi Pascoe through a hole, before forcing Brock Sepulveda over the line with a flat cut-out ball.
Big Luke Chalker also picked up a meat pie from the front row, charging on to a flat pass from Zachary Blay.
As for De La Salle, they scored five tries down their left flank, possibly exposing a few defensive frailties of the Devils down that side.
Winger Te Wehi Waitere picked up a whopping four of the five tries from the wing, with fullback Trentham Petersen showing some excellent playmaking craft to assist a handful of them with terrific cut-out balls.
Waitere also assisted his centre Tre Fotu for De La Salle’s other try, with Fotu showing some serious power to bulldoze one tackle attempt and fend off from another to score.
Despite five tries coming down this flank, it wasn’t enough for De La Salle to punish the Devils any more, consequently slipping to third on the ladder.
Collegians profit on Canaries collapse
Collegians ran riot 52-22 over the helpless Dapto Canaries after a second half collapse from the visiting side.
It was the highest scoring game of the 2023 season so far with 14 tries between the two sides.
As has been the case so many times this season, Dapto got out of the blocks strong, taking the lead with the opening two tries to wingers Anthony Skinner and Benjamen Beeche.
Former-NRL player Pita Godinet also picked up a peach from halfback, charging through a hole in the middle of the park and weaving his way away from a number of defenders to score a great solo try.
Collegians trailed at the break by just two points thanks to two first half tries from Sam McCann and one to Jay Watling, but took the lead shortly after the restart as Watling finished acrobatically in the corner after a nice pass from Charly Runciman.
From here Dapto lost the plot, with consecutive second half ruck infringements leading to some frustrated Canaries, culminating in Curtis Faughlin being sent to the sin bin for a late shot on Zeik Foster.
While playing with 12 men, McCann completed his second consecutive hat-trick, before setting up Max Devlin to run in to score.
The floodgates had well and truly opened at this point, as Campbell Rubie picked up a couple of tries off the bench, before fullback Callum Gromek decided he would get in on the act as well after some nice build-up work from Jack Cross.
McCann would then join De La Salle’s Waitere as a scorer of four tries in the one game when he planted down a Max Devlin grubber late on.
Justin Faughlin scored a late consolation, but overall another day to forget for Dapto.
Butchers put 50 on Cougars
Thirroul demolished the winless Corrimal Cougars 50-0 at Ziems Park in what was one-way traffic all afternoon.
The Cougars remain winless in the 2023 season, with this being their biggest margin of defeat so far.
They held on for 16 minutes before the tries started coming from the Butchers, first through a burst through the line from lock Harry Leddy, stepping the fullback and going in to score the opener, followed shortly after by Tarje Whitford grabbing a four pointer himself.
The Butchers would find form down the left, first through centre Cooper Bowen after a lovely inside flick from Dane Courtney, before the roles reversed and Courtney finished a nice right to left spread himself.
The Butchers would then take their attack to the right, with winger Josh Martin picking up two and centre Steve Marsters grabbing one himself in the right corner.
Martin would complete his hat-trick, the third player of the round to do so, linking up nicely with his opposing winger Courtney who was on the scene when Corrimal couldn’t clean up a bomb kick.
Fullback Wayne Bremner would finish proceedings with try of the day, thanks to some awesome work in the build-up from Cooper Bowen to break down the left flank and grubber it back under the sticks for Bremner to finish and bring up the half century.
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