Litchfield Bears beat Palmerston Raiders in NRL NT Round 10

The Litchfield Bears have downed one of their major foes to stay top of the ladder after 10 rounds, while the Brothers marked a milestone with an important win. Catch up on the latest NRL NT action.

The Litchfield Bears pulled clear in their arm wrestle match against Palmerston to maintain their NRL NT table topping ways 10 rounds in.

Palmerston are the only team to have beaten Litchfield this season back in the Mitchell Russell Shield match in Round 5, where they won 24-22 at their home ground.

But five rounds on Litchfield had it their way beating Palmerston 22-8, despite long periods of pressure and a Raiders’ defence that had turned up to play.

The Bears did open the scoring early on following with David Jacobson delivering a perfect offload to Benjamin Mullins who breezed through to score.

Palmerston grinded their way up the ground and showed their strengths to force errors from the Bears and off a strong Dennis Jevdenijevic carry captain Brad Hansen crashed his way over.

The scoring settled for the rest of the opening half with big tackles, intercepts and plenty of pressure befitting the occasion of the top three encounter.

For Palmerston there were moments with a Matios Hayes intercept and a wall busting run from Tevita Kolomatangi, but the Litchfield defence held on.

Instead Litchfield turned it on with some big runs from Lachie Jensen and Fletcher Tomes creating an overlap allowing Nathan Dixon to run in the side’s second try on the toll of half time.

Nathan Dixon for the Litchfield Bears. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Litchfield’s defence stayed steadfast in the second half while the great work of skipper Trent Wedding and Matt Woolmington put the side on the front foot.

Palmerston’s defence also came to the party for long periods, until back to back runs from Jacobson and Dixon set the platform for Patrick Manktelow to sell the dummy and go over.

They backed it up as Brodie Morcom took the high bomb, ran the ball up field and soon after Ben Drayton spotted the gap in his fatiguing opposition and ran in the sealer.

The Raiders kept coming and after long periods of pressure in their half finally made their way into Litchfield’s territory off the back of some big carries, including from coach Chuck Norris.

They probed the Litchfield defence and then a great inside ball from Jack Walsh hit up his captain Hansen, who wrestled his way over the line.

Brad Hansen scored a brace for the Palmerston Raiders. Picture: Patch Clapp / NRL NT

But the Bears had won it, a result coach Reg Rose was proud of but with five rounds still to come and finals looming he said the side’s work was far from done.

“The boys are buying into the process we’re playing at the moment, so every game we’re trying to execute the same game plan no matter who we come up against,” he said.

“It’s nothing special at the moment, it’s about playing really simple with completions being the focus at this stage of the year.

“It’s exciting but something we’ve said is it doesn’t matter being top at this stage of the year if we don’t continue to the end, but it’s an exciting group of players.

“We made a lot of errors in the first half and for us we felt that kept them in it, but we defended our errors really well, I love when we score points but our defence is what’s really turned up.

“Now we just keep building, the bye has come at the right time for us with a few boys carrying niggles, so we’ll freshen up, change a few things and keep working so we’re not too predictable.”

Elsewhere, the Darwin Brothers remain just one win off the top with a 30-12 win against Nightcliff, including a try for premiership captain Jonas Niki in his 100th A-Grade game.

Then the Sharks did their hopes of breaking into the top four some good with a 60-10 win against South Darwin, with Owen Potter scoring a hat trick.

Meanwhile, in the women’s competition the Darwin Brothers continue to dominate beating Nightcliff 60-0 with a hat trick from Janna Ransome.

Palmerston pulled off their most important win of the season beating Litchfield 16-8, with Tahlia Hazel, Hiria Brooking-Petelo and Dailene Doyle the try scorers.

And Sharks extended their hold on second with a 66-0 win against South Darwin in a 12 try performance where Jaymee Park scored a hat trick.

Originally published as Litchfield Bears beat Palmerston Raiders in NRL NT Round 10