ROUND 1 Wests Tigers v Cronulla Sharks

[TITAN PETE]

SUNDAY
Wests Tigers v Cronulla Sharks at Leichhardt Oval, 2:00pm #NRLWSTCRO

TIGERS: James Tedesco, Beau Ryan, Blake Ayshford, Chris Lawrence, Matt Utai, Benji Marshall, Tim Moltzen, Aaron Woods, Robbie Farah (c), Keith Galloway, Adam Blair, Gareth Ellis, Chris Heighington. Interchange (from): Liam Fulton, Matt Groat, Matt Bell, Tom Humble, Joel Reddy


SHARKS: Nathan Gardner, Stewart Mills, Ben Pomeroy, Colin Best, Matthew Wright, Wade Graham, Todd Carney, Bryce Gibbs, Isaac De Gois, Ben Ross, Jeremy Smith, Anthony Tupou, Paul Gallen (c). Reserves (from): Andrew Fifita, Sam Tagataese, John Morris, Mark Taufua, Jayson Bukuya, Jon Green

[TITAN PETE]

Wests Tigers 17 def. Sharks 16

The Moment: The burning question now is how will the Tigers reshuffle their ranks to plug the loss of fullback James Tedesco after the exciting youngster suffered a likely season-ending knee injury 30 minutes into his NRL debut? In a truly heartbreaking rugby league moment the 19-year-old crumpled to the ground without a hand laid on him after attempting a jinking step at the defensive line. Cruel, cruel, cruel. Meanwhile the Gods were kinder to Wests Tigers winger Beau Ryan: he crossed for his side’s opening four-pointer with barely 90 seconds gone before dragging them back on level terms with only four minutes remaining. On the end of a sweep of cross-field passes, Ryan dribbled a kick ahead from 15 metres out, beating the frantic cover of Todd Carney to score the most important try of the afternoon and send the Leichhardt faithful into frenzy. Yeah, yeah, Benji’s wobbly field-goal got them home: but we’re going to make ‘Moments’ a field-goal-free zone in 2012 – unless they are knock-’em-down-dead spectacular.