After regaining their mojo with back-to-back big wins over joint-cellar dwellers Easts Magpies and Hervey Bay, Wests Panthers have had their hopes of a top-three finish in the Bundaberg Broadcasters A Grade Premiership dashed when they were stripped of four competition points by Bundaberg Rugby League.
Heading into their rematch with the hapless Magpies at Salter Oval at 3pm tomorrow, instead of being in equal-third position with Past Brothers on 12 points, behind the rampaging Waves Tigers (18) and Wallaroos (14), they are now on eight points, six clear of the Seagulls and Magpies, each on two.
Coach Corey Tanner said it was a bitter pill to swallow, but all they could do was keep on winning.
And they should defeat Easts again after outclassing them 34-16 on April 20 and 66-10 a fortnight ago, then leading the Seagulls 36-6 at half-time at the Bay last week before the Seagulls were unable to continue, after losing several more players to injury.
“Our best over the last few games have been Bruce Ikamanu and Paula TuiVailala, along with Marcus Tanner and inspirational leader Dan Tanner,” Corey said.
“We were back on track but due to unfortunately being deducted competition points for repeat breaches with suspensions, we now have lost ground on the top three – we have been deducted four points.
“But this won’t deter us from playing our style of football and the buy in by the group with the us vs them mentality will be used as motivation to finish the season as high on the ladder as we can.
“But we understand that we have to keep winning and that starts this week against East who will be looking to put on a better effort against us this week.”
Tanner said they would again be able to play Dan’s son, Brisbane Broncos-contracted excitement machine Tariq Tanner, after he played his first game for the season for his family club last Saturday.
“Dan is really enjoying his footy and is looking forward to playing a few more games with his son Tariq, who is currently permitted to play with Wests from Wynnum Seagulls,” Tanner said.
Getting back into the top half of the ladder will be tough for the Panthers as their remaining four games will be against the three sides above them - Roos, Waves, Brothers - and Roos, again, respectively.
“We haven’t been able to field our best 17 all year but every player who has stepped up for us has done their job well and we will be getting our squad ready for a big finals run,” Tanner said.
“We will mark down the last three games for us to play with our full team starting with Waves, but we will just take one week at a time.”
In the earlier match tomorrow, Brothers will try to get their title defence back on the rails against Waves at 1.15pm after losing both clashes with the Tigers this year so far, including trailing 28-0 at half-time two weeks ago before lightning strikes stopped the contest.
Their minor premiership hopes were then all but ended last week when they fumbled their way to a 34-26 loss to Roos after leading 22-10 at the break, before the Tigers’ tidal wave continued to build momentum with a 46-14 demolition of the Magpies with Jensen Deamer continuing his white-hot form with another hat-trick of tries, and fellow centre Layton Chambers also having a field day, racking up 18 points with two tries and five conversions.
The Seagulls have another home game at Stafford Park at 5pm tomorrow against Wallaroos, and while they have lost both clashes with their Fraser Coast rivals so far this campaign, they have been very competitive in 26-12 and 30-16 losses to them, they will need to dig deeper if they are to turn the tables.
