ROUND 05/2010 - Queensland Cup

AS the saying goes, a win is a win, but Souths Logan coach Mark Beaumont knows his team was lucky to come away with the two competition points after their trip to Stockland Park on Sunday.

Match Report

In what he dubbed a “dreadful” performance from his team, the Magpies only kicked into gear in the final 20 minutes of the second half to scrape out an 18-12 win over the Sunshine Coast Sea Eagles.

Coming off a 22-16 loss against Wynnum Manly the week before, where they were out-muscled by a more disciplined Seagulls outfit, Beaumont was unhappy with the poor first half from his charges.

“The week before we were disappointing against Wynnum Manly and we were looking for a better performance; but we didn’t really get that,” Beaumont said.

“We didn’t play well at all – it was pretty dreadful actually. We just made fundamental errors and our completions were 9/21 in the first half which is woeful. Players were carrying the ball up and dropping it, we were our own worst enemy. But in saying that, we defended really well so that kept us in the game.”

With the amount of dropped ball, the Magpies were lucky to go into the halftime break only trailing 6-0, and even after they came back on to the field, things did not immediately improve.

“Sunshine Coast got out to a 12-nil lead early in the second half,” Beaumont said.

“But we managed to hang in there and scored the next three tries – we only hit the front with about 15 minutes to go.”

Including their productive 20 minutes at the back end of the game, there were a few bright spots throughout the afternoon, with Beaumont quick to point out the important contributions from a number of his players.

“Kieran Whalley played well for us, one of our local boys and Troy Thompson played well from our Raiders fly-ins,” he said.

“Kimi (Eliakim Uasi) also had a good game; it was his try from a strong run from dummy half that won us the game. I brought him up from the FOGS team after the injury to Glen Butriss in the first round and he has run with it.”

Their next round game is against the Tweed Heads Seagulls, who will be desperate to claim their first victory of the competition.

While Beaumont was unhappy with his team’s round 5 performance, Norths Devils coach Kevin Carmichael would be finding it hard to wipe the smile from his face.

The Devils travelled to Emerald to take on the Central Comets, and any reservations they might have had about giving up their home-ground advantage were quickly blown away with their 48-8 flaying of the Comets.

With Norths leading 16-4 at the break, the mostly pro-Comets crowd would have been hoping the Comets could reel in the ladder leaders and would have had no idea about the attacking blitz coming their way.

Impressive fullback Javarn White showed no mercy to the Rockhampton team – despite having played his junior football in the beef city – crossing twice in the romp, while Daniel Ogden and Gideon Mzembe also picked up doubles.

Like the Devils, the Wynnum Manly Seagulls remain unbeaten this year after their hard fought 34-22 victory over Tweed Heads at Ned Byrne Field on Sunday.

Vincent Silulu grabbed a double for the in-form Seagulls, who host the Ipswich Jets at BMD Kougari Oval this weekend.

Canberra Raiders excitement machine Justin Carney makes his long-awaited return from injury in this big Intrust Super Cup match. Carney has been named on the wing for feeder team the Souths Logan Magpies.

Results Table - Queensland Cup

Match Preview

The Magpies will come up against the club that knocked them out of last year’s premiership race in a thrilling preliminary final clash.

Souths Logan were outgunned by Wynnum Manly last weekend and this assignment looks to be just as difficult.

The Sea Eagles, who have named Terence Seu Seu in the No. 9 jumper, showed some signs that they were on the way back after scoring two tries inside the final 10 minutes to down the Easts Tigers last week.