By MARK CASHMAN

Eastern Suburbs recorded their first win of the 2020 Shute Shield competition with a solid 36-10 win over West Harbour in the TV match of the round on Saturday.

The Beasties jumped out of the blocks early with tries to Charlie Smith and Richie Woolf and actually led 15-3 at the halftime break.

Like last week backrower Sam Shires, new to Easts this year after having the previous two seasons at Manly, was the pick of the bunch showing the way with good carries and solid, bruising defence.

Centre Henry Paterson was another to do well on the artificial surface at Woollahra which can take time for teams to adjust to early in the season.

Shires had been hampered by a broken foot towards the end of his time at the Marlins missing the last 10 games of 2019.

He made the most of the truncated and Covid-19 affected pre-season and has started this year well.

“The time off helped me in a way to get back to where I wanted be,” Shires, who scored a critical try just after the break to extend Easts lead, told Jon Geddes.

Beasties coach Pauli Taumoepeau was somewhat subdued about his team’s performance.

“I thought we controlled the game well in key moments. Still, wasn’t perfect and I thought we lacked discipline in the last 10 minutes,” Taumoepeau said.

“We need to be better in those championship minutes.

“Wests are a good side with the potential to do some damage. They’ve got a dangerous mix of power and pace – they’ll get better as the season progresses.

Wests coach Mark Gudmunson said his side picked the wrong battles to wage against Easts.

“We are not far off getting it right though and can’t wait to go up against Eastwood. We just need to tinker with a few basics, we are excited for the next few weeks,” Gudmunson said.

“It was 15-3 at half time down, if we were the next to score, it is a different ball game.

“I think they would have been wondering how it was only that score after 40, but that is a credit to how hard we scrambled (in defence) when needed.

“We need to be better at building pressure for periods of time and making the opposition work their way out of trouble and not be gifted it.”

EASTERN SUBURBS 36 (Charlie Smith, Sam Shires, Jordan Jackson-Hope, Henry Paterson, Richie Woolf tries; Nic Holton 2 conversions, pen goal) d WEST HARBOUR 10 (Elliott Turner try; Josh Coward conversion, pen goal) at Woollahra Oval.

IMAGE: KARREN WATSON