A refreshed but rusty Darwin Brothers side managed big win over South Darwin

DARWIN Brothers fought off the rust of two weeks without training to beat South Darwin 64-10, while Nightcliff won a thriller over Litchfield in round 10 of the NRL NT A-grade premiership

Brothers half Nick Yarran scored a brace against South Darwin. Picture: Glenn Campbell

DARWIN Brothers fought off the rust of two weeks without training to beat South Darwin 64-10 while Nightcliff won a thriller against Litchfield in round 10 of the NRL NT A-grade premiership.

It was the Rabbitohs that scored first with Bailey Zaro taking an intercept and sprinting the length of the field to put his side in front.

The reigning premiers struck back soon after with debutant Xavier Grant scoring his first of two tries before Dalton West pulled one back for Souths.

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Though that would be the final score for South Darwin as Brothers played their way into form and eventually took the lead.

William Latu was another to score a brace of tries on debut while Nick Yarran, who spent time at hooker, and Junior Dunlop-Munagawai also scored two tries each.

Other Brothers try scorers included Aiden Singleton, Daniel Warren and Ethan Schober while Thomas Clarke was a steady presence from the tee.

Brothers coach Leon Cleal was proud of his side’s efforts though noted that there was plenty of rust on both sides of the field after two weeks out of the game.

“It was good but both sides were understandably a little rusty after having not touched a football for two weeks,” Cleal said.

“We knew errors would happen and knew there would be dropped balls but we stayed focused on what we wanted to achieve and a lot of that came together in our defence.

“The boys enjoyed the break after playing since February so the message was just for them to come in mentally prepared knowing what they had to do.

“Credit to Souths who always give 100 percent, they keep coming and were defensively pretty good after showing some determination early on.

“But we were happy to get the result which strengthened our case for finals and at the same time we have a lot of our players coming back from injury.”

Meanwhile, a late field goal from captain Brent Crisp won a thriller for Nigthclif Dragons over Litchfield Beats at Webber Park.

The Dragons as the 2021 league frontrunners came in as the favourites but they didn’t have it all their own way on their visit to Freds Pass.

There Litchfield proved that they’re a side flying under the radar in recent weeks and looked to upset the odds with tries from Clancy Court, Dillan Vanderberg, Jordi Goninon and Josh Burgess.

However, the Dragons were well in the scoring themselves with Sunia Radravu, Dustin Briscoe, Adrian Corrie, Scott Thurling and Matt Woolmington all crossing the white paint.

But it took a field goal from Crisp to seal the deal and see the Dragons secure their place atop the table.