Saints cage Tigers

It’s been a while between drinks, but St George Saints enjoyed a 6-3 romp over the Northern Tigers at Mills Park on Sunday afternoon. The Saints stole a top-five place from the Tigers in the goal-athon, repeating a 6-1 thrashing in their last victory over Northern in April 2007.

St George took a 2-0 halftime lead courtesy of goals to Tanju Balabanel and Juan Carlos Chavez, who added another straight after the restart. Scott Balderson pegged one back for the Tigers five minutes laster before Simon Verrender and Balabanel added a double to consolidate a 5-1 Saints lead inside the final 10 minutes of play. A Tom Mackay double for Northern certainly made it interesting at 5-3, but Chavez emphasised the victory with his third goal coming in the fifth minute of injury time.

Tigers coach Jason Eager was not happy at all with his team’s performance. “It was certainly poor defence on our behalf; schoolboys stuff. Very disappointing,” he said. “The personnel should have been there to do the job, but we were let down by some silly errors and poor decisions. We’re aware that we need to keep winning to stay in the [finals] hunt. I think it was just one of those days.”

Northern Tigers 3 (Scott Balderson 54m Tom Mackay 84/90m) St George Saints 6 (Tanju Balabanel 14/68m Juan Carlos Chavez 29/48/95m Simon Verrender 61m)

Source FNSW