Wauchope Blues defeat Port City Breakers in Group 3 first grade action

In Port City’s case, it was quite fitting the devil came in the form of the Wauchope Blues who inflicted the defending premiers first loss in 666 days.

There is plenty of history between the two clubs, so there is little doubt those west of the donut would have taken great pride in the 26-18 victory.

When the Breakers dropped the ball in the very first set of the match, little did Breakers coach Dan Kemp know it was a precursor into what was about to happen.

They fumbled their way through the match, dropping the ball on average eight out of every 10 sets of six and in the end the Blues had no choice but to make them pay.

“At one stage we’d dropped the ball seven times on the first tackle and there was more after that, we just stopped counting,” Kemp said.

“We completed at 22 percent which is the worst I’ve ever heard of, let alone coached a team in doing; you can’t win, it’s as simple as that.”

Kemp labelled the loss as the “kick in the pants” his team needed after they had found ways to win in previous weeks despite other poor performances.

“We’ve been going through the motions to be honest and been nowhere near our best so that’s a nice little wake up call that they’re not unbeatable, they’re not undefeatable,” he said.

“That’s not the first time we’ve had a poor completion rate (this season).

“We’ve gotten a little bit cute before, dropped too much ball and haven’t paid the price and been able to get ourselves out of jail.”

Despite the error-riddled performance, the Breakers weren’t put out of business until a Joss Cleal try with 12 minutes remaining.

Dan Dumas crashed over under the posts with five minutes left to give Port City a lifeline, but another error from the next set of six after the kick-off ended that revival.

“That (the loss) won’t hurt us, we’ve got to use that as a positive,” Kemp said.

“There’s teams out there that are just as hungry as us and just as willing as us and now believe that they can win a comp so that’s our positive.

“It’s footy, it doesn’t go to script does it?

“We’ve been going alright but all good things come to an end. No-one’s going to care about this come September as long as we get it right on the big day.”

On a disappointing day, Kemp was satisfied with his team’s defensive effort – especially on their own goal-line.

“It was literally 30 minutes of defending your own half of football which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before,” he said.

“We never once stepped foot in the other half for 30 minutes and didn’t look like getting beat until there was a one-on-one missed tackle which was fatigue I suppose, that’s the positive.”

It was their lack of respect for the ball that ultimately cost them.

“Too many boys didn’t have that respect for it because the ball was gold especially on a day like Sunday,” he said.

“You keep dropping the ball, you’re going to get your pants pulled down.”