Friday, April 23, 2010

Round 1: Newcastle Strike Back, Premiers Melbourne Scrape Home



Newcastle have struck back in what is emerging as an arch rivalry with Perth, defeating the Pre-Season Trophy Final winners 11-6 in a highly charged match in Newcastle.

Newcastle cruised to an early lead of 4-0, with Perth showing some hope of catching them as their young players rallied, but the match slipped away in the dying points.

In other matches, 2009 Premiers Melbourne scraped home in a see-sawing home match against Gold Coast-Tweed.

Canberra dealt out a surprise thrashing to an out-of-form Sydney 11-2 in the National Capital.

North New Zealand were lucky to find their way to Singapore amid the air traffic chaos caused by the Icelandic Volcano, but landed with an hour to spare and, rallied by their mascot the Big Pippie, jumped from 5-all to 9-5, and ran out comfortable winners 11-7.

In somewhat of a local darby, the Sunshine Coast gave last year's runners-up Brisbane a disappointing start, beating them 11-8 in Brisbane.

Finally South New Zealand had no issues with flights to Wollongong (via Sydney) but they and their mascot, the Big Peter Jackson, came home empty-handed, losing a close and high-speed, hard-hitting match 11-9 to Illawarra.

ROUND 1 RESULTS:
Melbourne 11 d Gold Coast-Tweed 9 (at Melbourne)
Canberra 11 d Sydney 2 (at Canberra)
North New Zealand 11 d Singapore 7 (at Singapore)
Sunshine Coast 11 d Brisbane 8 (at Brisbane)
Newcastle 11 d Perth 6 (at Newcastle)
Illawarra 11 d South New Zealand 9 (at Wollongong)


ROUND 2 DRAW:
Gold Coast-Tweed v Illawarra (in Gold Coast)
Sunshine Coast v Canberra (in Sunshine Coast)
Sydney v Brisbane (in Sydney)
Perth v Singapore (in Perth)
North New Zealand v Newcastle (in Auckland)
South New Zealand v Melbourne (in Christchurch)

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