By MARK CASHMAN

There’s not much of Gordon winger Mike Pavlakis but every gram was gold on Saturday as he helped the Highlanders to a pulsating 24-20 Round Eight Shute Shield win over Warringah at Chatswood Oval.

Pavlakis scored a double as the Highlanders came from behind to record a significant victory and keep their season very much on course.

They still sit in third spot on the Shute Shield competition table but have already had their bye and could well force their way into the top two in coming weeks.

Last year in this corresponding fixture Gordon made a major statement of intent with a 52-7 victory, but this is a very different year and the way this game panned was the complete opposite to what happened in 2020.

Warringah competed well at scrum time and were able to get into the right parts of the field at the right times and to be honest could feel a bit miffed about the final result.

The Rats in fact led 20-10 midway through the second half and were looking likely winners but the Highlanders continued to scrap away and managed to give the speedy Pavlakis the space he needed to get the score that made the contest “game on”.

Reece MacDonald’s conversion made it 20-17 to the visitors and there were a few creaks in the mindset of the Rats to finish things off.

From there the home side came home with wind in their sails and managed to get possession deep in the Warringah 22 where Brandon Fa’avae-Eli made the most of things and flopped over for the winning score.

Fa’avae-Eli’s first pump an indication that the bandwagon at Chatswood was gathering momentum and taking passengers.

Gordon coach Brian Melrose praised Pavlakis’ two-try effort.

“He’s only small but he’s got a big heart and made the most of the opportunities that came his way,” Melrose said.

Rats coach Mike Ruthven was kicking stones at the way that the game panned out in the end.

“It was very disappointing not to be able to close that one out as I thought that for the most part that we were the better side,” Ruthven told Rugby News.

“Our forwards in particular played very well – we were strong around set piece, competed well at the breakdown and physically we went well against a good pack.

“The breakdown work in attack let us down at times and our patience and execution in their ‘D’ zone wasn’t what it was in past weeks.

“But overall some really positives to take out of that performance as a group and it told a story about our intensity and intent against strong opposition.”

For Gordon MacDonald at flyhalf was a significant contributor and he brought an up beat tempo to the Highlanders backline attack that has been missing in the early part of the season.

And the winner of the clash between the Margin brothers? – Jack at Gordon and Hugh at Warringah.

The scoreline tells one story but if you refer that question to Ruthven he’s straight on the front foot.

“Without being biased and you can ask anyone who was at Chatswood Oval, it was Hugh 100 percent,” Ruthven said.

“He was outstanding for us and picked up our players’ player award. Hugh’s a young guy who had some success at Under 20 level and post that came to grade at Gordon and had two sit behind his brother.

“There were a few question mark around whether he was up to it but he’s been outstanding for us this season and Saturday was his best game for us by some measure.

“He’s a huge part of what we are doing this year.”

IMAGE: ANDREW QUINN / GORDON RUGBY