Ipswich Jets v Tweed Heads Seagulls
North Ipswich Reserve on Saturday, August 20 – 3pm
Ipswich Jets
18. Michael Purcell 2. Ono So’Oialo 3. Ben White 4. Nemani Valekapa 5. Richard Pandia 6. Haydan Lipp 14. Chris Ash 8. David Fa’alogo 9. Mikaere Beattie 10. Nat Neale 21. Jesse Roberts 22. Tyson Lofipo 16. Billy McConnachie 11. Sam Martin 12. Liam Capewell 13. Fakahoko Teutau 19. Peter Whittaker
Coach: Ben Walker and Shane Walker
Tweed Heads Seagulls
1. William Zillman 2. Nathanael Barnes 3. Leva Li 4. Timothy Cassidy 5. Jacob Garland 6. Doug Hewitt 7. Michael Burgess 8. Ethan Price 9. Sam Meskell (c) 10. William Bugden 11. Matthew Robinson 12. Cory Blair 13. Shawn Anderson 14. Sam Irwin 15. Josh Coyle 16. Mitchell Sharp 18. Oshae Tuiasau
Coach: Aaron Zimmerle
Last time they played:
TWEED HEADS SEAGULLS 22 (Alexander Grant 3, Matthew Robinson tries; Doug Hewitt 3 goals) def IPSWICH JETS 12 (Nat Neale, Carlin Anderson tries; Carlin Anderson 2 goals) at North Ipswich Reserve.
Head to Head: Tweed 19 Ipswich 10
ROUND 24
The Jets’ record over Tweed is not great Tweed have won 19 while Ipswich have won 10. The Jets have won five of the last six games against the Tweed in Ipswich.
In Ipswich the Jets hold the advantage over the Tweed Seagulls eight wins to five.
The Jets will play Tweed twice this year both at Ipswich; the game at Tweed was moved to Ipswich due to torrential rain and Tweed have forfeited their home game.
The Jets lost 22-12 earlier this year with the Tweed’s Alexander Grant scoring three tries.
Tweed are coming off a loss to the Northern Pride while the Jets are coming off a loss over the Dolphins.
The Jets have scored 500 points this year and had 511 points scored against them. While the Seagulls have scored 359 points and had 620 scored against them.
That’s a 141 point advantage to the Jets in attack and 109 point advantage in defence.
TWEED
Tweed are currently in 13th place and coming off a 26 point loss to the Pride last week.
The Tweed had the handy addition of Titans’ player William Zillman returning from a foot injury and playing Intrust Super Cup.
Zillman’s stats against the Pride showed he will be a valuable contributor to the Seagulls cause while he remains in black and white.
Zillman played the full 80 minutes, ran the ball nine times for 148 meters with three tackle breaks.
Zillman brings with him 156 NRL games for the Raiders and Titans and the Jets know first- hand what Zillman is capable of doing.
Zillman has played for the Jets previously in 2010- playing two games and scoring two tries.
The Tweed danger man will be the winger Nat Barnes. Barnes is still the Intrust Super Cup’s leading try scorer over 133 tries for Tweed and Wynnum. He’s a smart customer with plenty of finishing ability and football smarts about him.
Tweed traditionally rely on brutal forwards like Leivaha Pulu who made a great impact off the bench last week.
The Seagulls let the Pride get away to a 12-0 lead which would have been retrievable at half time if they didn’t allow the Pride to score three tries in the first quarter of the second half- putting the result away.
Matt King will be coaching the Seagulls on Saturday as their normal coach Aaron Zimmerle will be coaching Canada in Hawaii.
Matt King played his last game for the Seagulls against the Jets in the 2014 finals and was sent off for head butting. So he doesn’t have great memories of his playing career against the Jets.
JETS
The Jets loss to the Dolphins makes it nearly impossible for them to make the finals barring two huge miracle wins over the Seagulls and Wynnum in the last two weeks and a plethora of results going their way.
The Jets have used 33 players this year with 15 players making their debut. This may prove profitable in future years with so many players now having played Intrust Super Cup but in 2016 it is a bridge too far to climb.
In contrast last year the Jets used 28 players with seven making their debut.
The Jets had 15 players last year play 20 or more games; keeping the same team on the field the whole season. This year four players have played 20 or more games.
The Jets will be without Sam Martin who has played his last game this year, sustaining a high ankle strain against the Dolphins.
Against the Dolphins the Jets’ on line defence let them down with two tries in the first half from close range.
The Jets have allowed 62 tries this year from 0-20m out, which is 73% of their total tries scored.
The Jets kept letting the Dolphins back in to the game through mistakes in both attack and defence. The Jets still missed only 26 tackles compared to the Dolphins 35 but the Jets missed them at the business end of the field where there is a small margin for error.
The Jets best against the Dolphins was again Nemani who made 230 meters for the Jets, while hooker Mikaere Beattie topped the tackle count with 32.
This game is all about pride for the Jets. It is Old Boys Day the Jets will want to perform in front of Jets. Both teams can’t make finals but they can play well and take that into 2017.