Isapea climb to 6th place in turning-the-corner performance

 By JOHN PANGKATANA

IT’S official. The Gulf Isapea are no longer push-over’s.

The Kerema franchise caused the upset of the round beating the Enga Mioks 14-12 in a solid performance in round six of Digicel Cup rugby league at the Lloyd Robson Oval yesterday.

Coach Nigel Hukula said there were some trying moments where they nearly gave the match away due to lack of discipline but gave credit to the team sticking to their guns in the dying stages of the match.

This is Isapea’s third win which pushes them up to sixth spot with six points, behind competition leaders Gurias 10, Tigers 10, Lahanis 10, Mioks 6 and Vipers 6.

 While Isapea opened the scoring in the fourth minute to five-eighth Joshua Thomas, it was the Mioks through their rampaging forwards in Esau Siune, David Loko and Andrew Sipil that had the latter reeling with playmaker Roger Laka engineering the fightback.

The Mioks sent in centre Sonny Daing in the 11th minute and then Koiari winger Bland Abavu at the 26th minute to have Isapea struggling to get into their rhythm trailing 12-4.

Following the break, a deft 40-20 clearance kick by the improving Junior Belo in the opening minutes served to ignite the sleeping crocodile.

From the scrum replacement centre Nelson Wallen punched through with a half-break down the right flank before off-loading to skipper Barry Pekea  and then an inside ball to winger Pipi Kilori saw him slice through untouched over the try-line to score.

With the conversion from Jason Koivi, Isapea were within two points of the Mioks.

The Mioks tried to ignite but were plagued with their own ball handling errors and wrong options from Laka to allow the latter to take control of the match.

Isapea’s powerful new signing in former Kumul Nixon Kolo proved to be handful each time he carted the ball up with good support from prop Dickson Wallen, second-rowers Samuel Hamari and Stanley Korowa.

Isapea’s utility Peter Jimmy coming on late in the first half to replace  Thomas, proved to be a match winner when he latched onto a Belo chip from midway and then gave Koivi a nifty no-look inside pass from the angle to set up Nelson Wallen for the try of the match.