Turns out dead cats do bounce. None more than Jarome Luai.
Which was probably never in doubt given Sunday’s last dance (for 18 months) at Leichhardt Oval.
A week after being thrashed 68-0 by the all-conquering Panthers and lamented as “brain dead” by coach Benji Marshall, the Tigers led the Titans by 12, conceded 24-straight points and then stormed home in the wet for a 36-28 victory.
Fittingly, it was skipper Luai – the face of four heavy losses since announcing his historic signing to be the face of Papua New Guinea’s incoming franchise – who led the revival with a second-half hat-trick to hit back at his critics.
“A lot has been made since his decision to go to PNG and that [criticism] falling on him,” Marshall said after some “solid discussions” with his skipper about rediscovering his best form.
“So write how he brought us back tonight because everyone wrote how that changed our season. Well, write how he won it for us today”.
Luai acknowledged the noise had taken a toll, saying: “[Marshall] knows, we’ve had a few convos about that.
“But he sat me down one day and just said ‘wipe all of that’. [Tigers teammates] love me for who I am, and they need me to bring my best. This is going to be the start of that.”
The last two tries from the joint-venture’s hero decided an enthralling affair, and came in classic Luai fashion – with fast feet and a moment seized. But that was only after plenty of largely unadulterated, defence-free madness.
With a standing ovation welcome, howling southerly at their back and a 12-0 Tigers lead, Leichhardt Oval – hosting its last game for 18 months before a sorely needed $40 million upgrade – was all set to be farewelled finely, by a sold-out mob of 17,773.
Gold Coast maestro Keano Kini then trashed that script all on his own. With three try assists in six minutes and 211 first-half running metres, Kini sparked a trio of scarily similar long-range tries right through the middle of the Tigers and a surprise 18-12 half-time lead, which was stretched again by a Beau Fermor try straight after the break.
The Leichhardt faithful had fallen mute after renditions of everything from John Denver to Journey and Creedence Clearwater Revival, but 24-straight points makes for a rough encore
But working in concert with fullback Jahream Bula down the Tigers’ left side, Luai changed that tune.
Surging over in the 47th minute, the under-fire co-captain had the Wayne Pearce Hill in full voice once more – It’s Raining Men the soundtrack of choice as the Titans obliged by kicking out on the full and conceding penalties for fun.
When Alex Seyfarth spun out of one tackle, powered through another, scored another and booted the ball out over the fence, it was 24-all with 27 minutes to play.
The Titans reclaimed their lead when Sunia Turuva botched a bomb defusal on the sideline, copped a wicked bounce and the Tigers wound up defending their line. Quick hands had Phillip Sami racing over it soon enough.
With 10 minutes to play, Luai was at it again though, screaming onto a knocked-down pass that sat up perfectly for his second of the afternoon. As the clock ticked down, the DJ put his feet up. A voracious “Tigers” chant sufficed.
So too, Luai’s last play. With 45 seconds to go, one jink back inside, then another and another, he was in under the posts and the Tigers had turned around a 68-point thrashing in seven days.
“The first thing [spoken about during the week] was personal pride in the jersey and the lack of that we showed last week in that performance, and how do we restore that,” Marshall said.
“And then bringing an energy to our crowd at Leichhardt, them knowing it’s their last game to try and give them something to cheer about … I’ll take full responsibility for last week from the way we prepared. I think there were things in my prep that changed our priority from the fundamentals and our defence. That was on me as a coach. But this week we got it right, so I’ll take the win as the coach too.“
The Tigers will still sweat scans on what’s feared to be a long-term pec injury for Kai Pearce-Paul, while Adam Doueihi is likely another week away in his recovery from a shoulder issue. But as the Tigers masses celebrated, a warning eventually went out over the loudspeaker: “Please don’t start pilfering chairs from the western grandstand, there’s still NRLW games to be played here.”
Fair enough, both ways really. The dead cat had bounced after all.
