Despite a valiant fightback, Cessnock's premiership campaign continued to falter on Saturday afternoon beaten 30-14 by The Entrance in round 15 of the Newcastle RL.
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Making matters worse, winger Harry O'Brien has a suspected ACL injury and will miss the rest of the season.
"You wouldn't wish that your worst enemy," coach Harry Siejka said. "He's a really good player and a really good kid to have around the group so for him to have an injury like that not only effects the boys mentally, with the team sheet it's probably going to hurt us as well because he's a great player."
Fullback and recent signing Tony Pellow was also injured in the loss with coach Siejka hopeful of nothing more than a severe cork.
Siejka said the amount of injuries are disruptive for his side but he was unwilling to use that as an excuse for conceding 30 points at home.
The Goannas started poorly at Cessnock Sportsground, trailing 18-0 after 25 minutes.
The home side were without prolific try-scorer Honeti Tuha and backrower Wyatt Shaw from the 48-12 win against Northern Hawks last week. New signing Justice Leota made his first grade debut for the Goannas at centre.
"We were off the pace in the first 20 minutes, which is when they got a bit of points," Siejka said.
"We had errors and didn't have enough urgency to get to our points and run our shape and like I said, we probably did it last week and we were a bit flat at the start as well."
Cessnock sprung to life in the 10 minutes before half-time, strike centre Brayden Musgrove scoring a try in the 34th minute.
Goannas lock Brent Mendyk crashed over after the break to give the home side a fighting chance at 18-10. A slick short side play then sent O'Brien over to leave Cessnock trailing 18-14 with about 30 minutes remaining.
O'Brien was then seriously injured, halting the Goannas momentum. The Tigers settled and scored two quick-fire tries to Grant Nelson and Kyle McLean.
"It took us probably 40 minutes to get into what our shape was and our game plan and then obviously when we started sticking to that process we got points and came back into it," Siejka said.
Siejka has served his four-match suspension and will be back to face Wyong at Cessnock Sportsground on Saturday, July 22.
"I think this week off has probably come at a good time, I think we should get a handful of guys back - but like I said, you take an Eddie (Honeti) Tuha, Wyatt Shaw, Corey Barber, myself, Reed Hugo, Brad Russell, there's a fair bit of cattle missing out of that squad," Siejka said.
"We just need to get everyone on deck - that's what's hurting us at the moment is the chopping and changing of the squad."
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Ben Carr
Starting out as a reporter in Lightning Ridge in 2005, I returned to journalism in 2023 after 15 years spent in event production and technical services. Passionate about community news, contact me on ben.carr@austcommunitymedia.com.au or ph: 0484 524 000
Starting out as a reporter in Lightning Ridge in 2005, I returned to journalism in 2023 after 15 years spent in event production and technical services. Passionate about community news, contact me on ben.carr@austcommunitymedia.com.au or ph: 0484 524 000
