Monday, April 12, 2010

Wildcard Round: New Sides Shown No Mercy

New Second-Division expansion sides Greater Blacktown, North Melbourne and Ipswich have been bundled out of the Pre-Season Trophy, all losing their Wildcard round matches.

Ipswich put up the strongest fight, pushing North Queensland to the end in a close 11-9 thriller in Townsville. Greater Blacktown never threatened home side Darwin, going down 11-6. North Melbourne were comprehensively thrashed 11-3 in their trip to neighbouring Geelong.

In the other wildcard match, Tasmania were eliminated, going down 11-9 to Adelaide in front of a capacity crowd in Hobart.

WILDCARD ROUND RESULTS
Adelaide 11 d Tasmania 9 (at Hobart)
Darwin 11 d Greater Blacktown 6 (at Darwin)
Geelong 11 d North Melbourne 3 (at Geelong)
North Queensland 11 d Ipswich 9 (at Townsville)

The four winners have earnt a place in the 16-team Pre-Season Trophy knock-out, with the Preliminary Round now finalised as follows:

PRELIMINARY ROUND
P1: Melbourne v Adelaide (at Melbourne)
P2: South New Zealand v Gold Coast-Tweed (at Christchurch)
P3: Perth v Darwin (at Perth)
P4: Canberra v Illawarra (at Canberra)
P5: Brisbane v Geelong (at Brisbane)
P6: Newcastle v Singapore (at Newcastle)
P7: Sydney v North Queensland (at Sydney)
P8: North New Zealand v Sunshine Coast (at Auckland)

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