Miners coach digs deep

By Gavin Staindl
BERWICK Miners coach Mel Martin is determined to stick by his battling and slowly depleting team despite another loss that increased his team’s winless streak to 11 games.
The Miners were reduced to 18 men, their lowest total for the season, and consequently lacked the sort of class that gave the Raiders a 19-6 victory at Sydney Pargeter Reserve.
Suffering their 10th loss in 11 games (one was a draw) and facing the prospect of losing more players before the season is out, Martin remains steadfast on building a side that will remain competitive for the final game against the Buccaneers as well as next year.
Early in Sunday’s game, signs pointed to a demoralising loss when the Raiders went the length of the ground to score a touchdown in their opening play.
The visitors scored again in the second quarter to open up a 13-0 lead by half-time.
In the past few weeks the Miners have returned from the half only to be overrun in the final quarters but the trend was reversed and apart from a last-minute Raiders touchdown, the Miners kept the visitors scoreless in the last half.
“Apart from two or three games, our defence has been superb all year,” Martin said.
“Allowing three touchdowns per game at any given time should not be a losing score … we should be able to score three,” Martin said. Three weeks ago the Miners took the field with a squad of only 20 available players and Martin was again forced to deal with the minimal number of players on Sunday when only 18 turned up.
His side was further hampered by injuries to leading wide-receiver Rick Brown and running back Scott Sunderland.
As Martin recapped the match from the weekend, he recalled a time only six months ago during pre-season when more than 110 people signed up to practise with the gridiron side.
“It has just filtered off,” he said. “But our club has to be focused on … going through the recruitment process.
“The under-18s start training this week, then we will get back to pre-season training in January.”