Bond University pulled off a stunning 34-0 upset over Wests today with a proud \u201cteam of nobodies\u201d inspired by Queensland\u2019s 1995 State of Origin team.<\/p>\n
The shock result in the minor semi-final knocked out the Bulldogs when many judges had them as favourites to win the StoreLocal Hospital Cup in a fortnight.<\/p>\n
The match had drama from the outset when Wests No.8 Luke Masirewa was red carded for stamping on the head of Easts winger Patrick Barlow at a ruck.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs were forced to play a man down for the remaining 75 minutes but Bond University were so superior it would not have changed the result.<\/p>\n
The Bull Sharks were delighted at full-time at Sunnybank Rugby Club before revealing the inspiration they had drawn on all week in the build-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a saying all week \u20181995 Maroons\u2019 because we had to keep turning up, tackling and staying in the fight like Queensland\u2019s \u201995 Origin league team under ‘Fatty’ Vautin,\u201d said Bond University flanker Matt Engelbrecht.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike them, we are a team of nobodies and like them we identify as a team of scrappers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinning this semi-final is unreal. The whole idea was to retain the ball and put pressure back on Wests.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bull Sharks did it to perfection to book a preliminary final clash against Easts at Bottomley Park next Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Tigers find themselves in the prelim after being beaten 38-28 in Sunday\u2019s major semi-final by a Brothers side which marches direct into the grand final.<\/p>\n
Engelbrecht was superb for Bond as he has been all year. Inside centre Tyler Campbell made smart metres all afternoon and flyhalf Luke Depiazzi was classy.<\/p>\n
It was Depiazzi who scored the Bond try for 5-0 at half-time after sharp fullback Tai Dowling had made a dart from the ruckbase and fed him an inside pass.<\/p>\n
Depiazzi threw a cutout pass to winger Deon Evans-Ao-Leifi for the try that gave Bond a 13-0 jump at the 47-minute mark.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs looked shocked at that point. Even with 14 men, they had dominated a large part of the first half. Their long unbeaten run of big scores entering the finals seemed to have them ill-prepared for a tight fight or a scrap for points. \u00a0<\/p>\n
In the major semi-final, the Tigers had their chances when an Andrew Ready rolling maul try tightened the scores to 31-28 with plenty of time remaining.<\/p>\n
A succession of costly penalties and being unable to synchronise another drive from a 5m lineout played into the hands of the gallant Brethren.<\/p>\n
In the end, a surge close to the tryline from replacement hooker Theo Fourie grabbed a final five-pointer for Brothers with time almost up.<\/p>\n
Huge credit must go to Brothers lock Hamish Muller who backed up with a willing 80 minutes after playing the final quarter for the Queensland Reds in Friday\u2019s match against Tonga in Nuku\u2019alofa.<\/p>\n
He still had spring in his step after a 12-hour travel day on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The match was square at 14-all during the first half with both sides trading tries.<\/p>\n
The separation arrived on half-time when classy Brothers speedster Will Cartwright chipped in-field from the left wing, sprinted and regathered for the try.<\/p>\n
That 31-21 lead was the break Brothers needed.<\/p>\n
\nJi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bond University pulled off a stunning 34-0 upset over Wests today with a proud \u201cteam of nobodies\u201d inspired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,12061,760,85],"class_list":["post-74639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-queensland-reds","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}