Easts celebrate Keliti Vaingalo’s early opener – Photo: seiserphotography.com

by Brendan Bradford –

Eastern Suburbs recorded a bonus point 27-17 win over Randwick in an ANZAC Day clash at sunny Coogee Oval on Thursday afternoon.

As much as Easts coach Mark Bakewell was delighted with his side’s ability to back up after a rugged victory over Sydney University last Saturday, he says he was happier to notch a win over their fierce Eastern Suburbs rivals.

“The best thing for me is coming to Coogee and beating Randwick, because I played in the 80’s and 90’s when they had 12 internationals and a team of rock-stars and you’d get bagged by the crowd,” he said.

“I told the boys that you play for these types of games at Coogee Oval, and that’s two years in a row we’ve come here and won and I love that.”

Jumping out to a 20-3 halftime lead, the Beasties took the foot off the pedal in the second half, conceding two tries but doing enough against a Galloping Greens side that made too many handling errors and elementary mistakes.

Ethan Ford struggles to evade some tenacious Easts defence – Photo: seiserphotography.com

“We’re not capitalising on our opportunities and we’re just making schoolboy errors, knocking it on, getting stripped at the breakdown, not getting to the breakdown and kicking it out on the full from a kick-off,” Randwick coach Wade Kelly said of the still improving outfit.

“There’s no confidence in them coming off a season where they never won, so if it’s not first phase when they score, they don’t know what to do. Sides like Eastwood and the rest know to just keep going through their plays because they’ve done it so many times in the past, but we’ve never done that before.”

The best football was played in the opening stanza as Randwick attacked with width and pace while Easts pounced on any counter-attacking opportunity. After trading early attacking raids, a group of penalties allowed the visitors to march down the field, set-up a five meter line out and drive over the line for lock Keliti Vaingalo to take a 5-0 lead.

Fly halves Toby Browne and Henry Hudson traded penalties before a bit of space out wide let captain Pauli Taumoepeau put fellow Beasties stalwart Anton La Vin down the sideline. The converted winger still had a bit of work to do in beating the cover defence before the conversion hit the uprights, giving Easts 13-3 lead. Randwick looked promising for much of the opening half an hour but were lacking in the danger zone, while Easts capitalised on every opportunity.

Things went from bad to worse for Randwick when centre Tim Wright was sin-binned just after 30 minutes for an early tackle as Easts headed towards the Randwick line from broken play.

Try scorer La Vin turned provider as he attacked the defensive line before offloading to Will Fay who ran under the posts untouched for a 17-point half-time lead. Randwick could have tallied a late first half try when Easts prop Sione Kolo was sin-binned and a series of pick and drives inched them closer to the line, but as they did all afternoon, two knock-ons followed before prop Richard Aho was bundled into touch in goal and ended the half.

The Galloping Greens hit back early in the second with a try to Seilala Lam and looked to mount a comeback by pinning Easts in their own territory but the rebuilding team still lacks confidence in the attacking third and didn’t have the killer instinct to drive home their advantage.

Easts’ centre Tom Azar brushes off Randwick skipper Seilala Lam – Photo: seiserphotography.com

Taumoepeau crashed over for the bonus point to restore the 17-point gap shortly afterward, but his side switched off for the final quarter of the game.

Running like a centre, hard-working prop Toa Asa stamped over numerous would-be defenders on a 20-meter rampage to peg back the deficit to 27-17 and Randwick dominated the closing stages, but never looked like getting any closer to the Bondi boys.

“We’re just not confident at the moment that we can still score two tries and close out the game,” said Kelly.

“As I said, sides like Eastwood just back themselves because it’s worked before and to be fair Easts played well and scored with their limited opportunities, but our guys are still to trust what they’re doing. It’s progressing slowly with some of the players – Rennie Lautolo on the wing has been outstanding, Mark Baldwin when he came on today made a huge difference at 7, Toa Asa played well in the front row and Nio (Halangahu) added a bit of experience which was good – but collectively as a team, we’re not confident in what we’re trying to do.”

Already motivated by the intense rivalry, Easts were given more provocation by the TAB, which had their Southern neighbours at shorter odds to win the game but in their last two outings the Beasties have shown they will be a team to reckon with as the season wears on.

“We worked a lot on playing direct, running through them and playing straight hard lines which we did. I’m a little disappointed that we watched the game for a large part of it, but it was a solid performance and I thought we played some really good rugby,” said Bakewell.

“We’ve been given one of the worst draws in the competition, we’ve got Manly next week and that’s after Norths and Uni, so that’s three of the top four from last year. The draw is what it is, but we just have to control what we can control and our blokes will just get better because they’ve turned a massive corner.”

It will take some time for Randwick’s labour to bear fruit as the club rebuilds after last season’s poor showing but with the lower grades and Colts team starting the season well, there are positive signs for the future.

Randwick travel north to Rat Park to face Warringah next weekend while Eastern Suburbs host Manly in another heavyweight clash.

Eastern Suburbs 27 – (Keliti Vaingalo, Anton La Vin, Will Fay, Pauliasi Taumoepeau tries; Henry Hudson 2 cons, pen) def Randwick 17 – ( Toa Asa, Seilala Lam tries; Toby Browne 2 cons, pen)