Tigers face physical Western Highlanders in Eagles’ nest

 By GABRIEL LAHOC

LEAVING behind the comfort of their den in Lae, the Lae Snax Tigers will enter into the Eagle’s nest to play their third away-match of the Digicel Cup season and their first in the Highlands region this Sunday.

The Tigers will be in enemy territory as the Wamp Nga Mt Hagen Eagles with their army of supporters behind them will want to avenge their season opening 18-14 loss at the Lae rugby league ground 10 weeks ago in April.

Tigers coach Stanley Tepend said his charges were expecting a hard game in this first deployment into the Highlands region starting with the Eagles who were the Tigers’ first victim in 2013.

“It’s going to be tough, they beat the Lahanis so we are expecting a really really hard game,” Tepend said.

He lamented the missed opportunities in last weekend’s 10-10 draw with the Hela Wigmen but did say that the job was not made any easier with the absence of six players on suspension.

“We had situations where we should have won the game, we shouldn’t be relying on last-minute field goals and penalties to win matches. Building pressure and scoring tries off that is what we want to do but we didn’t do that,” he said.

“They did not do as much as expected, you know we did not play like Tigers but we have worked on areas as we know Hagen is going to be physical. 

Tepend said he would stick with the same team that drew with Hela.

The side would also welcome back the services of representatives in forward Roy Kela and utility back Thompson Teteh, who return from the third Team Kumul high performance training camp this week in Port Moresby.