The Bull Sharks farewelled The Canal for 2025 in style on Saturday, with the Premier Men locking in their finals berth and Colts 1 underlining their premiership credentials with a ruthless win over GPS.
Colts turned the tables on a side that beat them earlier in the year, delivering a commanding 52-7 performance built on fast starts, clinical game management and a dominant bench.
No.8 Harry Ole led the charge with a fearless, tackle-busting display, while Kenny Harris was tireless across the park.
“That was one of the best team performances of the year,” coach Rico Gear said. “And to see a Colts group earn a pushover try under the posts was special.”
The Premier Men, meanwhile, did it the hard way, again, before eventually outlasting GPS 31-26 in a see-sawing contest.
Led by a super performance from Liam Dianella, the Bull Sharks looked sharp in attack and defended with desperation on their own line, but coach Mick Heenan admitted it could have been easier had his side played with more ruthlessness.
“We just didn’t exit well or build pressure,” he said.
“But to hang on at the end and secure a top four finish is a great reward.”
Bull Sharks v GPS at The Canal
Colts 1
Bull Sharks won 52-7
How it was won
They beat us last time, so it was a mindset approach. Our game management was really good. We knew if we could rip in early, they probably wouldn’t stay in it. We managed to do that and I think the score was 33-5 at half time. In the break we talked about putting teams away which we haven’t been able to do. Normally we get up by a few points and they take the foot off a bit and go through the motions. So it was pleasing to see the boys finish off the way they did.
What made you happy
We got a pushover try under the sticks. You don’t often get them and that is probably the best one I have seen from a Colts group. I know we are capable of it, so it was exciting to see them create one.
Bull Sharks Footy
We did a lot of good things as a team, a lot of real collective stuff. Our counterattack was great, our support play, especially from the forwards was excellent. We scored some long-range tries and made some very good decisions around when to pass, when to carry.
The focus
We had a real emphasis on our bench players. Their job is to finish the game off, and we have been harping on a lot about how important their job is. Against Easts a few weeks ago, we only just won that game. We didn’t give any penalties away for 59 minutes and the bench came on and gave away three in a row. In a tight game that is crucial. We needed them to understand how crucial they are and when they came on, on the weekend, they did a really good job.
Trademark Player
They all played pretty well. If I had to mention a couple it would be Harry Ole. His job at No.8 is to run over blokes, I’ve been telling him he is capable of doing that and he was awesome for us on the weekend. He just refuses to be tackled and that is the attitude we want him to have.
Kenny Harris was very good also, he is just a workhorse.
With Rico Gear
Premier Men
Bull Sharks won 31-26
How it was won
We created a lot of opportunities. We had a try disallowed within the first one or two minutes, and then a couple of careless exits and unforced errors let Jeeps score the first try. But we looked dangerous whenever we had the ball, we moved the ball around quite well. We just weren’t finishing our opportunities. We got our noses in front just before half time and scored again just after half time to lead 26-14 and then we took our foot off the gas, and they came back to 26 – 26. We scored with a few minutes to go and hung on. We missed a couple of conversions, our last two were missed from virtually straight in front, and they would have made it a more comfortable final few minutes.
Trademark Player
Liam Daniela was in everything, he got us out of trouble a few times. He won a couple of penalties for us in defence when we were defending on a try line.
What made you happy
Our try line defence was actually something that was pretty good because we gave Jeeps a lot of opportunities with our errors and inability to exit. But we held them out. There was twice when we had turnovers in our own 22 and there was three or four minutes where we were under the pump. We managed to hold them out, so you build a bit of self-belief with that stuff.
The work to do
We just lacked a bit of ruthlessness on the weekend to do the boring stuff and exit well and try to apply pressure to the opposition. There are all these opportunities that you see and you try to take and you if you don't quite nail them, then you put yourself under pressure. We need to fix that ahead of the finals.
With Mick Heenan