By MARK CASHMAN

Eastern Suburbs have clawed their way back from an 18-0 deficit to defeat West Harbour 28-18 in the Round 10 Shute Shield clash at Drummoyne Oval on Saturday.

Wests showed that they will be a difficult proposition in the second half of the season for the competition’s top sides by scoring three tries with the wind at their backs.

They may well have only won three their nine games so far in 2021 but the addition of Alofa Alofa and Carlo Tizzano has given them some real edge.

That and having some time together means that there is some really robust stuff happening in attack when the big boys get a bit of a roll on.

Tries to Justin Marsters, Visiano Vaohea and Damien Fleming told the story of the first half of the game.

“We gave the first 40 a real go,” Wests coach Mark Gudmunson told Rugby News.

“In saying that we probably left two opportunities out there and the weather in the first half was playing havoc with our conversions and to be honest we should have been ahead by more.

“It was amazing to see that all the points were scored at one end of the field – Easts just took their chances when they had them in the second half.

“Our set piece was really good, we were very dominant at scrum time and in the second half the officials were seeing something different as we did not get the pay I thought we deserved for the effort that was going into that area.”

The Beasties came back after the halftime break a lot more focused and slowly dragged their tails into the game, helped by a pretty handy gale at Drummoyne and the work of Teddy Wilson, Rohan Saifoloi and Jack Digby.

Winger Blake Rixon got the show on the road with the first try of the second half and Hamish Moore made it “game on” with the second five pointer from the back of a rolling maul.

Beasties No.10 Saifoloi was continuing to pull the strings in the background right throughout the second half and got the go head score after some nice sniping from his scrumhalf Wilson.

Wilson continues to impress and his rising confidence is seeing him run more with the ball and that is taking the pressure off those outside him at the same time creating opportunities.

“We’ve got a few areas to clean up. I felt at the time we worked well to create opportunities and then just undid them with errors,” Easts coach Pauli Taumoepeau said.

“West Harbour came out and just ran with the ball well and found holes. They controlled that first half really well through energy and dominance in the contact area.

“But Rohan and Jack Digby led us well. They controlled the mentality of the boys in that second half.”

A big plus for Wests is the presence of Tizzano who was good with and without the ball.

“Carlo is a real work horse around the field in both attack and defence, he played a bit of 8 for us on the weekend and showed a bit of versatility,” Gudmunson added.

“Having Alofa Alofa and Cam Orr back in the squad was really pleasing too and they matched well with the group we already have.

“We have shown that we can do special things and we will look to build on that as the playing group continues to get stronger together.”

IMAGE: JB PHOTOGRAPHY