SP PNG Hunters fight back to earn draw

PNG Hunters fight to earn draw. Photos source. PNG Hunters

THE Papua New Guinea Hunters showed their flair with a great fight-back to escape with a 20-20 draw with last year’s losing grand-finalist East Tigers at Langlands Park, Brisbane, yesterday.

While it is still early days, the South Pacific Brewery-sponsored Hunters franchise are showing a bit of steel in their backbone with their grinding performance against one of the favoured teams in the competition.

Having being beaten by last year’s minor premiers Northern Pride and beating the reigning premiers Mackay Cutters as well, the Hunters have shown they can make the finals in their debut season.  

The round five saw the Tigers dominate the start of both halves but allowed the Hunters to open up and finish the stronger. Hunters coach Michael Marum may have been satisfied with the start of the game which saw both sides go to the sheds at 8-8 but he would be pleased to see his side dig itself out of a hole in the second 40 and go close to winning the match in the dying stages.

Marum’s major dilemma is basic – the side needed to improve completing a set of six with a good clearing kick.

This was again exposed by the Tigers who had the Hunters pinned in their half due to drop balls and lack of discipline that saw two early tries to centre Shane Neumann from a Cody Walker cut-out pass and then Maeli Seve for an early 8-0 lead.

Drop balls from Gary Lo and Mark Mexico and then a late tackle from Mexico saw the homeside dominate with ball possession.

With 14 minutes left of the first half, Lo was finally given some room down the left flank from an off-load by fullback Adex Wera before turning it back inside to a backing up David Loko for the Hunters’ opening try.

With Marum again using his bench well with Willie Minoga, Noel Zemming and Dion Aiye with his first run, the Hunters finish the half strongly and managed to pick up a penalty a minute from the break.

Zemming landed the penalty to draw level at half-time.

The second-half again saw the Tigers pepper the Hunters defence early on for winger Jarrod McInally to dot down in the 43rd minute exposing centre Albert Patak and winger George Benson.

With the 12-8 lead, a Patak dropped ball did not help with the Tigers on the offensive again seeing a high kick towards the shorter Benson, who had no chance against the taller McInally who took the high ball and handed off to Walker for an easy try to for an 18-8 lead.

A Walker penalty saw the Tigers out to a 20-8 advantage with a quarter of the match remaining.

Not to be outdone the Hunters created their own chances when rake Wartovo Puara Jr ran off a Sebastian Pandia off-load to crash over to trail 20-14.

That try got the visitors going and they had the Tigers rocked for the first time and when Puara putting Aiye through a hole on their own20-meter who then found Loko who feed a steam Lo to score the try of the match and level the scores at 20-20.

Best for the Hunters were Timothy Lomai, Purara Jr, Pandia, Loko and Minoga in the forwards, while in the backs Patak made good ground and Lo again was again consistently dangerous on the left wing.

Results: Saturday – Central Queensland Capras 14 Souths Logan Magpies 36, Tweed Heads Seagulls 18 Redcliffe Dolphins 32; Sunday – Norths Devils 30 Mackay Cutters 10, Easts Tigers 20 SP Papua New Guinea  Hunters 20, Wynnum Manly Seagulls 46 Burleigh Bears 6, Ipswich Jets 38 Sunshine Coast Falcons 16. Northern Pride on bye.

PNG Today / The Natioinal