Eastwood Centre Michael McDougall makes a break – Photo: Invictus Photography

by Geoff Smith –

Eastwood has sent an early message to the rest of the competition with a comprehensive 40 point win over Randwick at TG Millner Field.

Winger Ben Shorter led the way with three tries as the home side piled on the points in the second half to claim a 53-13 victory.

The damage wasn’t just felt on the scoreboard for Randwick with outside centre Seamus Frost limping off after 30 minutes with a serious hamstring injury.

The club will also assess winger Ethan Ford who may have a broken arm whilst prop Dashville Kuata injured his knee.

Randwick opened the scoring with a penalty goal in the 3rd minute, but the lead was short lived as ‘Woodies winger John Grant opened his 2015 account nine minutes later.

The home side extended the lead just before the break, following a poor clearing kick from the ‘Wicks. Eastwood five-eighth Jai Ayoub’s clever show and go fooled the defence and he went through a gap to set up Shorter for his first.

A Randwick revival looked likely after the break. Some superb soccer skills down the left side put the visitors deep in opposition territory before five-eighth Andrew Norton crossed for the Galloping Greens first try of the season, which reduced the margin to nine.

But there wasn’t much more joy for the away fans. Kuata was forced off the field, before the points piled on.

Eastwood scored five second half tries, including a great solo effort from half back Mick Snowden to carry two defenders over the line. Fullback Ben Batger also impressed, linking with outside centre Tom Hill, to score under the posts.

Randwick crossed for a consolation try when replacement winger Chris Taripo flew down the left side to score in the 80th minute. But in a sign it wasn’t the visitors day, the conversion hit the upright and bounced back into the field.

Eastwood coach John Manenti was satisfied with the first up showing of the reigning premiers particularly his forward pack, led by prop Sam Needs and number eight Pat Sio.

“I was particularly pleased with our scrum, which like I said is a whole new tight five,” Manenti said.

“Lineout wasn’t great but when I say we expect that, we’re not a real tall side, we’re not a real big side, so they worked hard. The front rowers in particular, what they gave up at scrum time, they worked hard around the park to get it back for us. So like I said, for a first up game I was very happy.”

For Randwick, they’ll salvage what they can and look to their lower graders to fill the void left by a number of injuries.

“It’s a long season,” Randwick coach Shannon Fraser said.

“We’ll have to search deep, but we’ve got to take some positives out of that. We can’t look too negative. We’ll look at the way we prepared and the way we’ve trained, it’s certainly not reflective of the effort the guys have put in and we’ll certainly be addressing a couple of things.

“We’ve had another couple of season ending injuries there today. That affects combinations, when you’ve got different guys coming on, so it’s a good test on our depth. But we’ll certainly keep trying and I know there is a lot guys in the club that want to put their hand up.”

The Wicks will call on their stocks at home in round two, when they take on West Harbour, who suffered a 32-7 defeat to Northern Suburbs.

While Eastwood will head up the highway to meet Gordon, who come off a 19-10 win over Eastern Suburbs.