Cousins spark Panthers to opening round victory

Lemuela Liu crashes over from dummy half.

‘HOW easy is this?’ is what Centenary’s latest sensation, Lemuelu Liu must have been thinking as he walked off PJ McIlwain Place in Wacol on Saturday.

In his first ever competition match of rugby league, the dynamic 20-year-old winger scored a double to propel the Panthers to an easy 22-12 victory over Southside 2 newcomers Redlands in round 1 of the Brisbane Second Division Rugby League competition.

“Our little winger (Liu) did well for his first game of rugby league,” Panthers coach, Peter McIlwain said.

“He did well. He picked up a couple (of tries) and took on some of the big fellows. It’s good to see a little fellow can stand in front of a big fellow and he tackles pretty well.

“He got out of position a couple of times (in defence), one time they ran over the top of him (to score), but other than that he had a fine game for us and he’s very quick.”

While Liu, who resides in Inala, had a dream debut, his cousin, Henry Talataina, showed promising signs of being more than capable of filling the void at halfback left by Panthers’ 2009 captain and McIlwain’s son, Tim.

Talataina, who played fullback for the Panthers Southside 4 team last year, scored the opening try in the 11th minute and as the game went on, grew enough confidence to take on the line and distributed good early ball to his outside backs.

With the uncertainty still surrounding the extent of Tim’s knee injury, McIlwain said it wasn’t a matter of if his new No.7 was adept to do the job required.

“He’s going to have to be (our halfback), so we’ve got to make him a seven and a good seven,” he said.

“He’s got all the skills to be a good seven, we’ve just got to teach him to be a seven and with Stephen (Smith) being an experienced fellow at six, he’ll be able to take a bit of the ball too.”

In blustery conditions, the hosts took a 14-0 lead into the break and extended the lead out to 18 points five minutes into the second half when hooker Luke Palmer sneaked down the left sideline to score in the corner.

The visitors hit back soon after, but star centre, Deon Smith, after threatening the line several times earlier in the match, iced the match for the Panthers when he crossed out wide with eight minutes remaining.

“It was a hard win, they’re a good side Redlands,” McIlwain said.

“I give it a good six (out of 10 performance) to start the year.

“We didn’t complete passes at certain times, but we had the better position for most of the match.

“Our defence was also great. They only got a couple tries out wide.”