Eastman Warriors remain in second place in premier division

The Eastman Warriors battled injury, the heat and the Winnipeg Wasps to earn a hard-fought 24-12 victory July 11 inside A.D. Penner Park.

The win kept Eastman on pace to finish second in the league standings, after dropping a season-opening contest against the Wombats.

The game against the Wasps was a chippy affair, with several Eastman forwards going down with injuries, both pre-game and during the run of play.

“We’re banged up, you see a lot of players with a post-game limp going on here,” head coach Darian Brown said after the match had finished.

“I don’t many of the injuries are major, so that’s a good thing.”

That left the Warriors team scrambling to deliver long spells of good play, with both teams getting bogged down throughout the match. Only a single try in the match involved many phases of play, with both teams taking advantage of both live-ball and re-start turnovers to strike quickly for their scores.

“Sometimes you have to win ugly,” Brown said.

“You don’t want to, but that’s a sign of a good team — when you don’t have your A-game and you get the win, and you fought through injuries and heat to do it — you take the win.”

Brown said the Wasps have improved over the past few years, and what has normally been a free space on the schedule for Eastman has turned into tough battles.

Only one of the game’s tries came off a long run of possession and the Warriors backs, usually the strength of the team, were unusually quiet.

Despite that, the team was able to scratch and claw their way to a first-half lead, before running the game down by taking advantage of Wasps mistakes.

The Warriors next game is against the Wombats, in a battle between the two finalists from the past three years. Brown said the team is thankful to have a week of rest, as they prepare for the tilt inside A.D. Penner Park July 27 at 3 p.m.