Wests sent a warning to the rest of the competition with a seven try demolition of competition leaders and defending premiers Brothers. 

Wests scored four unanswered tries in the first half, despite losing centre David Vaihu to a red card after he mistimed a tackle midway through the first half. 

But everything else went to plan, with hooker Ethan Dobbins even running 80 metres to score an intercept try and help his side to a 24-point half time lead. 

“Wests were really good,” Brothers coach Ben McCormack said on Monday. 

“We had a lot of changes going into the game but we were still really confident with the team that we put on the park and we thought we’d be more than competitive. 

“But Wests were just really good and they didn’t allow us to play the game we wanted to play. Tactically, they were smart at lineout time, they kicked really well and their talented players all had an impact. 

“Everything they tried came off. They just had one of those days.”

Wests scored another long range try five minutes into the second half to all but seal the result and added another two tries in the final 10 minutes to claim a 39-12 victory. 

Despite that, McCormack was relatively unfazed and seemed confident his side would bounce back when they got their full side on the park. 

“There are no excuses, they were better than we were on the day and they executed everything,” the typically relaxed coach told Rugby News. 

“But there are no alarm bells from us. 

We haven’t had much consistency in the teams we’ve been putting out in recent weeks. We had some good consistency at the start of the year but we’ve had a few injuries at the same time that the Reds have been playing these Tour matches so it’s been a bit of a perfect storm. 

“Two weeks ago we had eight changes and last week we had 11 changes.”

Brothers beat Wests in a thrilling grand final last year and backed that up with an impressive 31-12 win when the two sides met again back in May. 

Wests now sit one competition point against UQ in third and two competition points ahead of Souths in fourth and can book a spot in a major semi final against Brothers if they can beat Easts and Souths in the coming weeks. 

“Looking at their team lists, I’m not sure how much better they’ll get,” McCormack said. 

“They put a very high quality side out on the weekend. They were missing Angelo Smith who will add a bit, but besides that, they were all there. 

“I’m confident that if we can make a few tweaks and get a bit more consistency in our side, then we’ll be there or thereabouts.”

In the rounds other matches, Souths scored seven tries in a 47-24 win over Sunnybank, flanker Nathan Bell scored twice for Bond in a 28-26 win over Easts and GPS kept their slim finals hopes alive with a 38-14 win over Norths. 

Brothers will most likely be joined in the playoffs by Wests, Souths and UQ and McCormack said that should make for one of the most even final series we’ve seen in recent years. 

“Souths are big and physical and if you don’t match their physicality, then they are going to beat you. 

“Uni have a bit more variation in their attack and Wests just have talent right across the park. 

“They almost don’t need variation because they’ve got so many individuals that can create something from nothing. 

“It’s going to be a really interesting finals series.”

Brothers travel to play Norths next week, then host GPS at Crosby Park in round 18 and McCormack is hoping to have most of his troops back before their finals campaign begins. 

“We had a couple that probably would have played on the weekend if it was a finals match but we didn’t want to rush them at this point of the year. 

“A couple will be back this week, a few more will be back the following week so we really want to have a bit of consistency and build some momentum on the back of that.”