By Melissa Tabet (Tigers)
The Mackay Cutters eliminated the Tigers over the weekend to win 38-14 in the first week of the Hastings Deering Colts finals series at Marsden State High School.
The Tigers were bolstered by five Intrust Super Cup players dropping back (Zac Croft, Solomona Faataape, Joe Gilmour, Jonah Glover and Ronald Philitoga) after last weekend’s final competition round.
Unlike last week’s clash against each other where the first try was scored in the 1st minute, it took 14 minutes for a try to be scored by either side.
The first try came off an intercept 80 metres out which landed in the hands of Tigers winger Zac Croft.
Exactly 4 minutes later, Tigers centre Solomona Faataape busted through the line and scored one of the greatest individual tries fending off the Cutters fullback in the process.
The Cutters were gifted with excellent field position after a Tigers error 20 metres out from the try-line, and looked to have scored twice but the Tigers defence was too strong.
More razzle dazzle was shown by the Cutters and after slicing through some weak Tigers defence scored their first try of the game through their halfback Henri Stocks.
Tigers hooker Justin Smith looked to get his first try of the game but was deemed to have impeded the defence from dummy half 2 metres out from the try-line.
Mackay hit right back in the next set through centre Josh Smith who broke through the line before offloading to halfback Henri Stocks who offloaded to hooker Blake Paskins to score their second try and reduced the Tigers halftime lead to 4 points.
The second half would be dominated by the Cutters scoring 28 unanswered points with tries to Jack Hoffman, Tyler Holmes, Josh Smith and Henri Stocks.
Second half errors by the Tigers substantially grew and unfortunately they were unable to get back in the game.
Congratulations to the Suzuki Brisbane Tigers Hastings Deering Colts side on their 2021 campaign finishing the season in 5th position with 9 wins and 5 losses. They equaled with five other teams on 2nd to 6th position.
Mackay will proceed to Finals Week 2 against the Wynnum Manly Seagulls on Saturday, 25th September 11:45am at Tugun RLFC.
Main image: Erick Lucero
