Tigers One Week Away

The Wests Tigers have moved to within one win of a maiden grand final appearance for the joint venture after easily disposing of the Brisbane Broncos 34-6 this afternoon at Aussie Stadium.

The Tigers never trailed at any stage in their six try to one thumping of the Broncos, leading 10-0 at half time and then piling on another 24 points in the second half to well and truly blow Brisbane off the park.

Brett Hodgson was once again instrumental for the Tigers following up his 30 point effort last week with a 14-point haul to claim man of the match honours.

After the match the Tigers fullback was ecstatic with the win, but credited coach Tim Sheens for his smart strategic moves.

“It was a great effort today from the boys, we are just over the moon,” he told Channel Nine’s Matthew Johns.

“Sheensy had a wonderful game plan for us to run their big blokes ragged and thankfully it worked well.”

Brisbane looked the goods early on with a stiff breeze at their back dominating possession and field position, but some sensational defensive play from teen prodigy Benji Marshall thwarted the Broncos twice and in the process handed the momentum back to the Tigers.

His first piece of brilliance came in the eighth minute when he somehow managed to hold Darren Smith up over the line when the Brisbane second rower looked certain to score, but it was in the 16th minute that Marshall turned the game on it’s head intercepting a Smith pass 20 metres out from his own line and then out sprinting the Broncos cover defence to open the scoring for the Tigers.

The Broncos came close to hitting the lead on three separate occasions soon after with Scott Minto, Darren Lockyer and Shaun Berrigan all coming within inches of touching down.

It was Wests though that were the next to score producing a freakish try on the half time siren that saw centre Paul Whatuira make a break down the left hand flank before kicking the ball back inside where it was scooped up by Daniel Fitzhenry who dived over under the black dot.

Hodgson took care of the simple conversion attempt to send the Tigers into the main break ahead 10-0.

The half time break did nothing to slow the Tigers down with Brett Hodgson living up to his billing as Dally M fullback of the year in the opening moments of the second half making a bust from his own 10 metre line, before sending the ball on his outside to Ben Galea who in turn gave it to a flying Scott Prince to dive over adjacent to the posts.

Hodgson was again successful with his shot at goal pushing the Tigers lead out to 16-0.

Brisbane finally crossed for their first points of the game in the 48th minute when Darren Lockyer snuck through a gap close to the try line and with Seymour’s conversion the deficit was back to 10 points (16-6).

Wests landed the killer blow in the 63rd minute when inspirational veteran Mark O’Neill barged his way over from 10 metres out and then five minutes later Fitzhenry picked up a double to rub salt into the Broncos ever deepening wounds.

The Tigers finished the game in style with Hodgson scoring a well deserved try to cap the 22-point win that now sets up a blockbuster clash against the red hot St George Dragons next Saturday night at Aussie Stadium.

Tigers captain Scott Prince was happy man after the game, but knows that it will be even harder against the Dragons next weekend

“We know that we have got a tough game against St George next week, so we will lap this win up for now and then really work hard to prepare for Saints next week.”

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