The Terry Dickson Trophy will stay with the Tathra Sea Eagles after downing the Candelo-Bemboka Panthers on Sunday.
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The Sea Eagles dominated play over the injury-hampered Panthers to easily take the result 34-12.
A spokeswoman for the Panthers said it was pretty dour playing conditions, when not even the hill at the Bemboka ground could protect against howling southerly winds.
“It was absolutely terrible, even the hill didn’t protect them down there,” she said.
Tathra were in control from the outset, getting out to a 12-0 lead before the Panthers got in the points with early tries to Ben Crowley and Daniel Rutter.
Counted as one of CBU’s best on the day, it was forward Jory Taylor who put the hosts on the board, converting his own try to trail 12-6.
The second half continued in a similar fashion with an Alex Cochrane try 10 minutes in not enough to stem the flow of points from Tathra.
An early second half try to Mervyn Smith set the stage for Tathra, while Tate Cochrane sealed the result with a double late in the piece.
The spokeswoman said the home team were waylaid by their injury toll and just couldn’t muster many attacking opportunities.
“The boys were a bit flat, the talk was down and it meant they couldn’t gel in the attack,” she said.
“Tathra had a solid attack and just went through their sets.”
In league-tag, the Pink Panthers clinched the result 6-4 after scoring a runaway early try.
Tathra kicked off to the host club, but weren’t running a fullback behind the pack, so the Pink Panthers went for an early deep kick with Sharna Mitchell putting it on the boot for half-back Caitlin Johnson to regather and score.
The spokeswoman said the home club had a few more opportunities in the first half with some good play, “but silly handling errors meant we couldn’t capitalise on our efforts.”
Like in previous rounds, the Tathra Phoenix ladies rallied in the second half and dominated possession early with repeated attacking sets deep in Pink Panthers’ territory.
“We probably didn’t get much of a touch on the ball until about 15 minutes in just after Tathra scored,” the spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman said with Tathra just two points off the chase – missing their conversion – the Pink Panthers doubled down and gave up less errors to take control late in the second half and hold out the opposition for a close win.
Group 16 returns as normal for round 13 this weekend.