Bears chasing redemption in big dance with Dolphins

Jorja Brinums

Redemption is two-fold for Burleigh Bears’ Mal Meninga Cup side, going into the grand final against Redcliffe Dolphins at Kayo Stadium on Saturday at 3pm.

The Bears went down to Tweed Seagulls, 36-12, in last year’s Mal Meninga Cup grand final – their first grand final in the competition – and the drive to redeem that loss is strong.

Making the drive to win even stronger is the fact that the Bears’ only losses this season have been to Tweed and Redcliffe; but the side faced Tweed again and beat them 30-14 to get into the big dance, getting redemption there.

They did not face the Dolphins again, so the Round 7 30-20 loss still burns.

Coach Will Pei, in his first year at the helm, said the Bears’ win over last year’s premiers Tweed to make the grand final gave them plenty of confidence.

“I’m excited,” Pei, who was assistant coach to Ben Linde last year, said.

“We’ve done a lot of work to get to this point in the season. We’ve overcome a lot in the last couple of weeks in particular and proven every week that they’ve deserved to progress and get to the grand final. I’m really excited for the boys.”

Pei said his whole squad had lifted at every opportunity and were doing everything they could to succeed.

“We’ve had our struggles throughout the season with players being unavailable for whatever reason,” Fei said.

“I don’t like to single out players but I think my leader, my captain Hayden Watson, has been good for us when he’s been available… he has stepped up his game to another level in the last couple of weeks, so expecting him to go out there and do a job for us… lead us well.

“Antonio Verhoeven, he’s been a weapon for us… on his edge he’s scored countless tries throughout the year, and he’ll be one we’ll look to get the ball to throughout the game.

“Throughout the middle we’ve got a young Cyril Connell player who played his first game for us last week, Tupou Francis… he’s only 16 but he’s proven that he’s more than capable to play at the Mal Meninga level. He played a full game for us last week, 70 minutes as a 16-year-old, so mentally he’s very strong. What he’s able to do off the ball in terms of his efforts, he’s been a great addition to our team.”

Pei said on top of the natural drive to want to win a premiership, the Round 7 loss to the Dolphins was definitely spurring his side on.

“It’s always good to have that in the back of our heads,” Pei said.

“We’ve spoken to that in terms of this week’s theme. We wanted a second chance at them, which is happening now that we’re in the grand final.

“We’ll be going up against them knowing that we weren’t at our best, particularly in the first half, against them last time… we need to be a lot better if we’re going to beat them in the grand final. We know that.”

Pei added he was 100 per cent confident his side could get the job done.

“From early on in the season, they’ve done the right things off the field, on the training paddock… we know if we prepare well this week, we’ll go well,” Fei said.

“We were in this position last year. For us, it’s more about redemption than anything.

“We’re getting to play in another grand final. It’s not the same opposition but it’s pretty much on the same day, same venue.

“We’ve just got to make sure we’re prepared to go to war with this Dolphins side.”

Pei said, without giving away too much, the goal was the contain the Dolphins side to finish on top.

“They have strike across the park,” Pei said, acknowledging hooker Jaelen Marsh, halfback Noah Fien and winger Jeremiah Patea as Dolphins danger men.

“They’ve also got big bodies who are hard to contain, and we found that out when we played them earlier in the season.

“We’ll be looking to contain their strike players, some of those players I’ve mentioned, and if we can, we’ll go okay.”