Bears vs Tigers BMD Preliminary Final Pre Game Report ✍🏼 Michael Nunn
Someone has clearly decided there is no need to wait until the grand final. The Brisbane Tigers and Burleigh Bears will meet in a BMD Premiership finals blockbuster this weekend, with last year’s grand-finalists now facing off one week earlier than expected. Both teams will come into the contest with plenty of confidence, although they have taken very different paths to get there. The Tigers have had the luxury of putting their feet up after earning the week off, while Burleigh were forced to roll up their sleeves and deal with the Mackay Cutters.
They did that rather emphatically.
The Bears produced one of their most complete performances of the season, storming to a 44-0 victory that left very little doubt about who was in charge. They had 64 per cent of possession, busted 57 tackles and missed just five across the entire 80 minutes.
Yes, five.
Fourteen of Burleigh’s 17 players went through the game without missing a tackle, which says as much about their defensive discipline as the scoreline does about their attack.
Sienna Laing was at the centre of it all, producing one of the great individual BMD finals performances. The Bears fullback scored two tries and ran for 238 metres, constantly putting the Mackay defence under pressure with the ball in hand.
The combination of possession, tackle breaks and defensive accuracy left the Cutters struggling to keep up, but the Bears will know they cannot expect the same sort of afternoon against a Tigers side that has had an extra week to prepare.
Brisbane have won the last two clashes between the sides, including last year’s grand final, so they will have no shortage of confidence when they run back out against Burleigh.
The week off gives the Tigers fresh legs and plenty of time to prepare, while the Bears will have to recover quickly from a physically demanding finals performance.
That makes the opening exchanges particularly important.
Burleigh will want to establish the same sort of possession and physical dominance they showed against Mackay, because if Laing and the Bears’ attacking players are given room to work, they have shown they can turn pressure into points very quickly.
The Tigers, however, will be determined not to allow the Bears to build that momentum. Their challenge will be to match Burleigh’s intensity early and make the most of their fresh legs after a week on the sidelines.
For Burleigh, the challenge is to back up a near-perfect defensive performance while finding enough energy after doing the hard yards against Mackay.
The reward is a place in the BMD decider.
But before either side starts thinking about that, there is 80 minutes of unfinished business between two teams that know each other very well.
