Seagulls soar

Runanga have reclaimed West Coast Rugby League superiority, beating arch rivals Suburbs 22-16 in a highly motivated and physical grand final, at Wingham Park yesterday.

The game was not without its casualties, with Suburbs standoff Josh Cornish carried from the field 18 minutes into the game with a suspected broken leg. Play was disrupted for about 20 minutes as St John officers and others assisted in getting the dual West Coast rugby and league representative from the field.
Once play resumed none of the early match fire had cooled and at times the sideline resembled a MASH unit tending bloodied and limping bodies. Most notably bloodied were Luke Hughes (head) and Dave Crouchley (nose).
Seagull scrumhalf Layne Green took the inaugural Ces Mountford Memorial Medal as player of the game, putting on a brilliant all-round display.
It was the sixth time in as many seasons that Suburbs and Runanga have met in a grand final clash; Runanga took the honours in 2005 and 2006, but Suburbs reigned supreme in the following three finals.
Runanga player-coach James Ward was ‘stoked’ with the win and praised his side’s performance: “That was unbelievably hard. It’s the way a grand final should be, played for 80 minutes.
“Once we got our discipline sorted the boys dug deep and put on some unreal performances.”
He believed the last time Runanga had won both the main championship and grand final was in the early-1980s.
“It’s what we aimed for all year.”
In the opening minutes, referee Kevin Blance needed to caution players on both sides about questionable plays.
It took 15 minutes of heavy tackling to and fro before Suburbs got off the blocks, with prop Bernard Alexander getting the first try of the game. It was converted by Cornish but would be his only points of the game.
As soon as Cornish was carried off to applause, Suburbs resumed play and Nathan Iafeta put up a perfectly placed kick, caught by Blair Sims who put it down to score. Replacement kicker Dean Coghlan was not able to convert, hitting the posts.
At the restart, Runanga were hit by an onslaught of defence, notably by Suburbs hooker Ryan Shefford up in their face but man of the match Layne Green backed himself to score, 4-10.
With momentum steady, Runanga kept on driving Suburbs back and were rewarded as wing Tyler Davy got the next two tries, both converted by Richardson and put them in the lead, 16-10.
However, 30 seconds before the break Suburbs flyer Sims got his second four-pointer and Coghlan added the extra two points to level the score, 16-16.
Into the second half, it was anybody’s game and there were some good on-field tussles, such as between centres James Ward and Blair Sims, and wing Tyler Davy and centre Ethan Negri.
A Pete Nicholls block on Sims earned him 10 minutes in the bin but points were hard to come by until a heavily bandaged Luke Hughes finally broke the drought, bursting the defence and running round to dot behind the posts. Richardson made sure of the extra two points and this time Suburbs were unable to respond.
Suburbs coach Michael Nolan was obviously disappointed but proud of his side’s performance, especially as the game could have gone either way.
“We were well and truly in the game, I thought the guys competed really well.
“I’m disappointed, as you can imagine, it could have gone either way but I’m very proud. With the amount of injuries we’ve had, the guys gave it everything we had.”
Nolan did not believe that losing Cornish had been crucial to the result.
“Josh is the best player on the Coast by a mile, he’s a class player but losing him didn’t cost us the game. I’m proud of the way the boys lifted themselves over the past three weeks, they’ve been competitive.”