Gurias defeat Dabaris

By ROBINSON LEKA
A STRONG opening half from Rabaul Gurias saw them defeat Central Dabaris 26-22 in Saturday’s main match of the Digicel Cup in Port Moresby.
The round-six clash at the Oil Search National Football Stadium saw the Gurias post three tries in the first 20 minutes via centres Emil Benjamin and Roy Ellison along with another from second-rower Rex Kaupa.
The return of Dabaris playmaker Junior Belo at five-eighth saw them find their footing late in the half with centre Dikana Arere and rake Dobie Michael crossing over to trail 10-22 at halftime.
A better second half from the Dabaris with veteran forward Adam Korave in their line-up saw them gain momentum with winger Clinton Tube finishing bagging their third try (16-22).
Gurias’ Roy Ellison grabbed his second try of the match following a break in the Dabaris defence 10 minutes from fulltime (26-16).
Dabaris halfback Nick Hasu placed a short kick for Belo to score four minutes out, but time caught up with the Central franchise.
“I’m happy with the performance of the boys, especially that effort in the first half,” Gurias head coach Marcus Kaugla said.
“They put in a lot of effort in the first half and everything that we worked on during the week paid off.
“The second half is something that we really need to fix, so we’re going to go back and work on our finishing because that’s really important.”
Meanwhile, Dabaris coach Gairo Pepena pointed out that poor execution in attack and defence saw the match swing in favour of the Gurias.
“I’m really disappointed, we gave them a head start in the first half,” he said.
“Simple errors by us just invited them back on our 10m line and they made us pay.”