HAT-TRICK: Brothers Fullback Josh McCarroll crosses for one of his trio of tries in his side’s huge 72-22 victory. PHOTO: BRUCE CLAYTON
AS the local A Grade league season draws to a close Brothers have fired a warning shot to the high-flying Swifts Bluebirds by thumping the Fassifern Bombers by 50-points.
Despite the 72-22 win Brothers Coach Wayne Barnett is still looking for improvement from his team.
“There were a lot of good signs in our win, and I was happy that the form of certain players has started to pick up in the run to the finals,” he said after the match.
Importantly for Brothers they have now secured second place for the final series which gives them a double chance to make the grand-final.
In the weekend match Fassifern was always going to find the going tough with a shortage of players.
They did start the game on fire with a brilliant opening try to Scott Ireland which was followed up by another try to centre Sean Hams giving them a 10-nil lead after only eight minutes and some Fassifern fans were daring to believe an upset was on the cards.
These opening two tries only seemed to fire the Brothers’ side into action and by halftime time they had replied with seven tries in 28 minutes to put this game to bed with a 38–10 halftime led.
Cameron Bundock was in scintillating form out wide and by games end would cross for a hattrick.
Fullback Josh McCarroll was not to be outdone as he also would cross for three tries and claim the City Cave Man of the Match honours in a display that showed why he was crowned Rookie of the Year last season.
While these two scored the tries it was another young up and coming star in Casey O’Connell who got his forward pack on the front foot with great service from dummy half. Fassifern tried to contain this Brothers outfit but basically ran out of puff, but no blame could be sent in Charlie Christensen’s direction as he was strong in a losing forward pack and also crossed for a double.
The loss of their general Luke Pollock from last week’s team really showed up as the team was disjointed
throughout most of the game.
In the other games Swifts warmed up for their finals assault with a clinical display defeating Goodna by 56 – 12, while Norths gained an edge over Redbank with a great win 36 – 26.
