East Campbelltown Eagles have comfortably accounted for Belrose in the first week of the finals, but things are about to get a little harder.
After their 40-16 victory on Saturday, the 2016 Sydney Shield premiers head into week two of the finals needing to lift a gear if they want to go all the way, according to their coach Richard Barnes.
“We will need to play better to beat the sides above us,’’ Barnes said after his side led 22-0 at half time but took the foot off the pedal and allowed Belrose to score three tries in the second half.
“Our defence was brilliant in the first half but we still made too many mistakes and our completions were poor,’’ Barnes said.
“We can play a lot better.’’
The Eagles will need to play better to beat St Marys this Sunday at Ringrose Park, Wentworthville.
The match is scheduled to start 11am.
Against Belrose Eagles last Saturday the Campbelltown boys got off to a flying start.
Their brutal defence rattled Belrose, who never really recover from the early onslaught.
Indeed the Eagles scored off the very first set of six when Ben Baker bagged the first of three tries.
Tries to Sean Connor and Fusi Toutai pushed the lead out to 14-0.
And just as Belrose started to put up a fight, a 90m intercept try to Theo Leato helped the Eagles go to the break 20-0 up.
Belrose were the first to score in the second stanza to make it 20-4.
But East Campbelltown returned fire with a try to Brett Lahey and two to Ben Baker to grab an unbeatable 34-4 lead.
Coach Richard Barnes wouldn’t have been happy with the last 15 minutes as Belrose ran in three tries to get the scoreline back to 34-16.
A final try to Adam Soultan for Campbelltown helped them to a final score of 40-16
Best for the Eagles were Amanono Tovio, Sean Connor, Ben Baker and Brett Lahey.
The players’ player award went to John Da Silva and man of the match award to Grant Lahey.
♦ Staying alive in the first grade semi finals wasn’t the only thing the East Campbelltown Eagles were celebrating on the weekend.
The club’s junior teams won four grand finals in a terrific effort.
The premiership winners were the U9s in division 2, and U10s, U11s and U12s in division one.
