ROUND 07/2010 - Mal Meninga Cup

The 18s went down to Gold Coast Blue in a war of attrition with the game played in very warm conditions. It was certainly a shock to the system after having previously played night games in mild conditions.

Souths set the tone early on as to their intentions with a great opening set in defence jarring the ball loose. From the scrum an attacking set left the winger exposed in the far corner and pin point accurate kick from Conner Toia was fielded from a spectacular leap from Loma Sili.

Shortly after a blind side raid had Garrett Nowlan in the corner courtesy of great vision from Mitchell Moore who hit him on the chest with a selective pass.

Unfortunately handling errors turned over the football and the Blues were given enough opportunities to reply on the scoreboard and go to half time 20-14.

The Magpies gave themselves every chance by being on the scoreboard first with Kieran Battelly running onto the ball and crossing through two would be defenders out wide.

The elements certainly came into play in the second half. The Gold Coast boys were making the better of the running, more prepared to deal with the heat where the big Souths boys began to struggle. This was only compounded with the extra tackles they were forced to make through an increasing error rate. The Blues were good enough to capitalize on this and ran in back to back tries late in the game to take the win.

Jeremia Nia, Elisha Palupe and Nick Doyle had worked tirelessly for the Magpies.