BIG-STEVE'S
RED & BLACK SITE - 24/3/04
I'm not
sure I
agree with the headline and introduction. Quoting catch cries from the
1980's has nothing to do with the Bears current situation. However the
match discription is pretty much on the ball.
BIG-STEVE
Groundhog Day
For Bad News Bears
By DAVID
ROWLANDS
NORTH SHORE
TIMES - 24/3/2004
At a glance
Season opener
• Premier League Round 2 — Balmain 38d. North Sydney 16
• Jersey Flegg Round 2 — North Sydney 14 d. Balmain 10
• Next Round: North Sydney v Canberra, Leichhardt Oval, Saturday, March
27
Day one of North Sydney’s 2004
Premier League campaign bore a disturbing resemblance to most of the
days from the season that preceded it.
The 38-16defeat against Balmain at
Leichhardt Oval on Saturday afternoon offered the usual mix of madness:
dropped balls, lamen table defence and hair-tearing penalties, shaped
around a destiny-changing moment, but no shortage of overall effort.
Traffling 12-6 as the match ap proached the half hour mark, the Bears
had a try disallowed from a bomb, but sixty seconds later, they were
grouped at the other end after failing to shut down a Tiger attack.
Two more tries by the home side came in a five minute spell and by
halftime it was 28-6, when not long before that they easily
could’ve been 12-all.
“It was a tough call against us,” rued Norths’ hooker Ben Fisher.
“The touch judge actually said it was a try and we certainly thought it
was, but the ref overruled him.”
Regardless of the decision’s merits, the young Bears learned a
costly lesson about the importance of concentration in a seven-minute
‘black hole’ that yielded 16 points.
In temperatures that hovered around the 30 degree mark, their failure
to treasure possession was magnified like an ant frying under glass.
“It was a pretty frustrating
game for
both sides, but especially for us because we just made far too many
simple mistakes and that’s exactly what we had spoken about not
doing,” Fisher said.
Confming Balmain to 10-10 in the second half was a minor consolation
for a side that is very much in re-building mode after collecting last
year’s wooden spoon.
As their first competitive hit-out following an opening round bye, the
club’s management is con vinced that the red and blacks wifi
definitely improve on the tardy trip to Tigertown and become a far more
robust obstacle in the month’s ahead.
Massive progress is demanded in
the space of seven days, however, because their next opponents are the
reigning champions in Rugby League’s second tier competition.
The Bears have been handed the toughest assignment of all for their
first ‘home’ game of 2004 and it’s made even more
difficult by the fact that they can’t use North Sydney Oval
because of the grade cricket semi-finals.
Saturday’s match against premiers Canberra has been shifted to
Leichhardt Oval, kicking of at 1.45pm, following on from the Jersey
Flegg (under 20s) side, who will be looking to record back to back
victories after resisting Balmain 14-10 on Saturday.