The Bull Sharks have handed the Brailsford Brown Cup back to UQ after going down in a nailbiter in the inter-varsity grudge match.
It was a tough day in heavy conditions, with mistakes being a theme across all grades.
Rico Gear's Colts 1 side maintained their dominance over their fellow students but it was a loss for the Premier Women.
Colts 1
Bull Sharks won 26-22
Premier Men
Bull Sharks lost 12-10
How it was lost
We led at half time, but the opposition scored a couple of tries in a five-minute burst when we had a player in the bin. But we had three or four opportunities at the back end of the game to ice it and we just couldn't do it, which was disappointing because it has been a theme all season. We don’t have a problem with creating opportunity.
What made you happy
The scrum was good, we got dominance there but didn’t take advantage of it. And our defence was good.
Trademark Player
Matt Englebrecht was good at No.6. He is new this year and he was the standout.
The medical room
Tyler Cambell injured his ribs early in the game and wasn’t able to have much impact on the game which hurt us. He will be out for a couple for weeks. Dion Samuela will also be out for a couple of weeks.
The final word
We are too wasteful. We have had opportunities to win every game we have been in and have squandered those. We must be able to turn this part of our game around.
With Mick Heenan
Premier Women
Bull Sharks lost 26-15
How it was lost
It was just a heap of mistakes. But don’t get me wrong, UQ were very good and they played a similar shape to what we have modelled our game on, but they were able to execute better than us.
What made you happy
We have got really good shape. We managed to exploit the space, and we really make it hard for other teams. But we whittle away our opportunities with little mistakes.
Trademark Player
Our new player from Japan Taubasa Sasagawa was really good, she has gone from a wing position into a ball playing role. I thought she was the player most likely to give is a spark.
A special mention
Eva Doblo comes from an Oztag background, and she has done some great work on her defence. In her first game for the year the first couple of tackles were a bit off but she settled in and defended really well.
The work on
We have gone back to basics, we want to get the basic skill set back up to scratch so we have changed our training to focus on that. The IQ stuff is frustrating, we expect them to know this stuff but they don’t, they just don’t have the experience at this level and the background in rugby. So, we have created a lot of work a training around different scenarios they might encounter and educate them on how to respond in those situations.
With Lawrence Faifua