Bendigo 14 lose to Puckapunyal 26 in Bendigo, 1 May 2010.

The Fighting Miners lost their first competition match of the season when they went down to the renascent Puckapunyal Boars 14-26 at Shadforth Park last Saturday.

Defensive frailties on the fringes of the ruck and in the backline of the Miners gave the Boars repeated opportunities to score but the Miners held on to trail by only seven points at the break, 7-14.

Bendigo’s points were scored from a try to five-eighth Steve MacDonald when he sliced through the Puckapunyal defence at the back of a line-out and a conversion by Josh Manderson.

Puck opened the second half with an unconverted try to stretch its lead to 12 points at 19-7.

Bendigo responded with some strong running from improved set play. This led to a string of high tackles by the Boars’ players as the match threatened to become spiteful. Referee Wayne Pick took strong action, sending three Puckapunyal players to the sin bin simultaneously in the twentieth minute of the second half.

Bendigo almost immediately scored with flanker Connor Ryan going over. Full-back Josh Manderson converted to bring the Miners back to a five point deficit at 14-19.

Despite the numerical advantage, Bendigo was unable to add further to its score while the Boars were short handed.

On the return to the playing field of the rested sin-binned players, Puckapunyal resumed control, adding another converted try with five minutes remaining on the clock to run out clear winners.

The Tyson’s Reef Hotel player of the match award went to Bendigo captain Nick Dehnert. After starting at half-back, Dehnert made his presence felt when he moved to lock, strengthening the scrum and dominating the line-out. He also made some strong runs.

Others to play well for the Miners were Jesse & Elson Tuitupou, Shane Fagavao, MacDonald, Allan Saville and veteran Mark Luatutu.

Next week, Bendigo has the bye. On 15 May, the Miners travel to Wodonga to take on Border Army.

Bendigo team: 1 Ian Jones, 2 Travis Henderson, 3 Jesse Tuitupou, 4 Arthur Fuamotu,

5 Leif Eriksen, 6 Nick Dehnert, 7 Peter Clark, 8 Allan Saville, 9 Steve MacDonald,

10 Johneen Fagavao, 11 Nathaniel Whittle, 12 Julius Solomon, 13 Connor Ryan,

14 Mitch Spedding, 15 Josh Manderson, 16 Greg Olsen, 17 Alan Wilkinson,

19 Mark Luatutu, 20 Shane Fagavao, 21 Gary Grant, 22 Elson Tuitupou,

24 Nick Poingdestre.

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W. Coulter

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