RANDWICK V HUNTER WILDFIRES at Coogee Oval

Randwick sat atop the Shute Shield ladder after their 50-7 win over the Hunter Wildfires on Saturday.

The Galloping Greens scored eight tries to one which in many people’s minds would show that the Wildfires were outclassed in their return to footy in the big smoke.

But that certainly wasn’t the case with the visitors scoring a decent try, peppering the Randwick breakdown right through the game and hanging in there all afternoon.

Randwick coach Ben McCormack said: “Yeah it was a decent day for us. We started well and played good field position early which they struggled a bit with.

“Our line out dominated and we took plenty of steals on their ball which disrupted their rhythm. They were competitive though and will grow.

“Our best were lock Den Hoedt, Dave Horwitz at flyhallf and Locky Miller at fullback.”

Wildfires coach Scott Coleman said: “The scoreline didn’t read well but I think we’ll learn a lot of lessons from that and what we’ve got to compete with.

“One of the main positives out of it all was that our boys never gave up. It was 7-all for the last 15 minutes and a lot of those kind of games can really blow out with 20-plus points at the end.”

Coleman added lineouts and one-one-one defence were work on areas.

“We lost six out of our eight so we were just giving up the ball. We missed 23 tackles as well, that’s far too many for this level,” he said.

“They are pretty easy things to fix and if we fix those we’re back in the contest.”

RANDWICK 50 ( David Vea, Kyle Harris, Ryan Powter, Jackson Mohi 2, Henry Hutchison, Christian Yassmin, Locky Miller tries; Dave Horwitz 4 conversions) d HUNTER WILDFIRES 7 (Lachlan Miller try; Taulogo Lalaga conversion)