Pine Rivers in pole position
Pirates win clash of the titans at Tweed Heads Pine Rivers are sitting in pole position at the 2013 State Pennant Finals, following a confidence-boosting win over archrivals Club Helensvale at Tweed Heads this morning.
Less than 24-hours after his extraordinary televised win at the inaugural Australian Premier League tournament, star skip Robbie Wild guided the Pirates to a seven-shot victory over Helensvale’s Hawks, 61-54.
Wild dispatched Anthony Fantini’s outfit, 24-15 to put Pine Rivers in the front foot.
His APL teammate Alex Murtagh couldn’t account for Anthony Kiepe, going down 14-23, but Kurt Brown picked up the slack, beating Helensvale ace Brett Wilkie 23-16 to secure a Pirates win.
The victory cements Pine Rivers’ standing as favourites for this year’s title, but they’ve plenty of work ahead before they can claim the flag.
In the other Section 2 match, Souths Suburban accounted for Indooroopilly, 61-45.
The sides were evenly matched on two of the three rinks, with Indooroopilly’s Brett Kitchener edging past Peter Blackburn, 18-17, and Souths’ Ray Kurtz beating Richard Burns, 22-19.
But Alan Howard’s foursome proved the difference for Souths, battering Greg Rolls’ team into submission, 22-8, to claim a 16-shot win for the Mackay club.
There were no surprises in Section 1, with Club Kawana and North Toowoomba coming out on top.
Kawana clocked up a comfortable three-rink win over Gladstone, 76-48, while the Toowoomba boys made short work of Townsville Suburban, 74-37.
Men Round 1:
Club Kawana 76 def Gladstone 48
South Suburban 61 def Indooroopilly 45
North Toowoomba 74 def Townsville Suburban 37
Club Pine Rivers 61 def Club Helensvale 54
