Cottesloe continued their relentless march into the business end of the competition with a convincing 32 points to 23 victory over UWA at the nest on Saturday. Cottesloe proved far too organised, relentless and physical and from an early stage there was only going to be one winner. Tobias Hoskins started the scoring when UWA failed to stop him smashing his way over from a few metres out and it proved to be a recurring theme. UWA scored one themselves but it was clear that they simply had to work harder to achieve anything. After twenty minutes, Tobias added a second as he spotted yet another mismatch and left a trail of corpses on his way to the line. Charl Nieuwenhuis was unerring off the tee converting both and he added a couple of penalties shortly after. UWA were able to breach Cottesloe’s line for a desultory response but Ali Haining, in his first start back for the club in 2018, flitted through the UWA backline to dot down. Charl added the conversion and at half time the score line read 27 points to 14.

The second half continued more or less in the same vein as the first with Cottesloe looking far more clinical, direct and accurate in attack and far more physical in defence. For long phases, UWA would sling balls left and right and would make little or no ground whatsoever and would eventually be forced to kick it down Scotty Nichol’s throat. Ali Haining, with about twenty minutes to go, shrugged off no less than four tackles to run in a fabulous score in the left corner. The first try he scored was an incredible team try but this one was an exquisite example of pure individual brilliance and when it went over, coach Fowler elected to run on the cavalry and protect some of his men. UWA did raise a gallop in fairness in the last fifteen minutes and even managed another score but the Cottesloe defensive organisation proved far too much for them to circumvent and Cottesloe eased up heading to the finishing line.

There were a number of brilliant performances yet again for Cottesloe. In the forwards, Kieran Stringer, despite being hampered with injury, pole-axed the whole UWA forward pack at various times in the match. Lewis Pickering and Rikki Bentham were magnificent in both the tight and the loose. In the backline, Charl was towering at 10 and his boot demoralised the UWA team. Ali Haining showed his class in the midfield with two superb tries and physically showed UWA that he was simply levels above their midfield. Man of the match though, has to go Tobias Hoskins. For a man who gels his hair and takes severe care of his appearance off the field, he is an absolute wrecking machine on it. Yet again he delivered another machismo bulldozing performance smashing aside UWA forwards like skittles and even gathering a brace of tries for his collection. This weekend Cottesloe travel to Bayswater and will be confident of cementing their place in the top three for the second part of the season.

CB