SHARKS EDGE BACK TO FORM

Coomera 0

Palm Beach 3 (B. Bruce, J. McKay, R. Kattah)

HT 0:1

PALM Beach Sharks look to be returning ominously to form after comfortably accounting for depleted Coomera at Viney Park in a 3-0 triumph.

Adem Poric’s side registered their second win on the trot against a Coomera side missing eight first team players, but did so despite their own injury crisis that denied Poric almost his entire first-choice side.

Bobby Bruce put the Sharks on course for the somewhat easy win with the only goal of the first half after some neat build up play on the left hand side. Bruce beat his defender before finishing calmly and from then on there was little doubt about the ultimate outcome.

Justyn McKay made it 2-0 just after the hour mark with a fine individual goal and Rafael Kattah iced the cake with the third 15 minutes from the end.

The result keeps Palm Beach in touch with the leading pack with games in hand and Poric knows his side have the quality to pounce if the teams above them slip up.

“If we can stay within three or four points of the top four over the next few weeks we’ll have a good chance of making the [top] four and we can win it [the Grand Final] from there.

“We have eleven injuries at the moment and we’ll have the majority of our players back towards the end of the season.

“The boys have been great and really stepped up in the last couple of weeks. A lot of teams have been keen to play Palm Beach when we’ve been in a bit of a rut, but I don’t think they’ll be so keen to play us now,” he said.

Coomera boss Steve Beever was pragmatic about the loss although he lamented the lack of depth in his squad.

“In the last two games we’ve been struggling with injuries and suspensions but we have no complaints. We never really created a decent chance and they have a good team with a good game plan.

“We had to be realistic going into this game and we didn’t embarrass ourselves,” Beever said.