Eastern Suburbs coach Stephen Tia was delighted with his side’s first-up Pillar Cup win and is looking forward to developing players for the next level.By Marc McGowan
THE inaugural Pillar Cup season is off and running and began in perfect fashion for the Eastern Suburbs, with a 15-10 defeat of the Kingston Redbacks at Bob Jane Stadium on Saturday.
Eastern Suburbs is a hybrid team made up of players from Endeavour Hills, Eltham, Maroondah, Box Hill and Bendigo rugby union clubs.
The competition has been established to improve the standard of Victorian rugby, particularly with the inception of the Melbourne Rebels in the new Australian Rugby Championship.
Lewis Leamoana, Tim Finau, David Muliaga and Tapu Ioane –older brother of Australian Wallaby star Digby – represented Endeavour Hills, and the former two, in particular, made major contributions to the victory.
Finau scored two first-half tries as Eastern stormed to a 15-5 lead at half-time, using its superior youth and speed to advantage.
Michael Thompson, who plays for Box Hill at Premier One level, crossed for Eastern’s other score.
But it was Leamoana who drew the most praise from coach Stephen Tia, who doubles as director of coaching at Endeavour Hills.
“Lewis Leamoana went close to being one of the best on the park. He’s young and playing against seasoned veterans and stood up quite well,” Tia said.
Despite failing to add to its total after the main break, Eastern conceded just one try in the second half to end a deserving winner.
“We’ve only just come together for four sessions, so it was a pretty good win considering we have boys from five different teams,” Tia said.
“We’re a promising side. I’m proud of the boys.”
Tia is excited by the Pillar Cup concept and believes he has much responsibility in his coaching role.
“It’s a great idea to make a different level and now some of these young rugby players out our way can actually get a look in at some of the representative sides like the Melbourne Rebels,” he said.
“My job as coach is to get as many representative players from the squad as possible.”
Eastern takes on the Melbourne Barbarians, who were 20-12 losers in round one, under lights at Bob Jane Stadium tomorrow (Friday) night at 7.45pm.
