Scintillating Tigers start puts Dapto out of play

Helensburgh re-established themselves as competition leaders and Corrimal stamped themselves as genuine finals contenders in a dramatic weekend of Illawarra Coal League action.

The Tigers could be forgiven for feeling sluggish at this time of year having contributed seven players to the CRL championship-winning Illawarra side and picking up Challenge Cup silverware in the past month. It could have left them ripe for the picking at Dapto Showground on Saturday but they showed no ill-effects running in eight tries in the 40-18 victory.

Dapto led 6-0 after Mick Murphy dummied his way across before Wayne Bremner, Steve McCallum, Matt Riccio, Sitiveni Moceidreke, Grant Smith and Jokatama Dokonivalu all crossed to give the visitors a 32-6 half-time lead.

Andrew Madden and Matt Handcock both scored for the Canaries after the resumption with Simon Maslanka's try sealing the win for the Tigers.

The scoreline would make most coaches happy but Ryan Powell said the performance didn't meet the club's self-imposed high standards.

"Some of the tries we scored were good but we were far from our best," Powell said.

"It was very unlike us. The first five sets of the game we dropped the ball, which is unacceptable, and we did a few things wrong defensively and were losing 6-0 after 10 minutes.

"In the second quarter we turned things around and came up with some good tries. At half-time we spoke about going on with it and we did the exact opposite, so it's pretty frustrating but at the same time we got a good result.

"We were doing some good things but we expect more out of ourselves this time of year. We'll take the win and scoreline but we need to improve."

While the match at Dapto Showground followed script, Corrimal tore their script up against Wests on Friday night.

The Cougars were heavy underdogs against the then competition leaders but shot out of the blocks after trailing 4-0 to lead 16-8 at half-time on the back of tries to Jack Payne, Brodie Rigg and DJ Lokeni-Purcell.

A try to Eli Roberts after break pushed the lead out to 20-8 and Wests could manage just the one reply through Nathan Dureau before a field goal and penalty goal to Matt Campbell sealed the 23-14 upset.

Cougars coach Brendon Reeves praised his big men following the victory.

"I know Wests are under strength, they're down a few big men and a few middles, but our boys really showed some grit in the middle," Reeves said.

"We were good through the middle channel and caused them a fair bit of trouble there.

"They probably hurt us a bit out wide. [Daniel] Holdsworth's kicking game is outstanding and they've got really slick outside backs but it was a different story in the middle."

Collegians remain rooted to the bottom of the ladder following a 34-18 defeat at the hands of Thirroul.