Red Devils bruised by Inverell in 'brutal' match

It wasn’t that pretty but they got what they were after – the points, 13-5.

Clarke had expected a tough battle, and that was what they got.

“The boys through grit and determination and pushing themselves to the 80th minute got the win,” Clarke said.

There was only two in it at half-time with a conversion all that separated the two sides.

“We couldn’t seem to get our structure into place,” he said.

“They have got a lot of big boys and they were tackling low and rattled us a bit in the first half.”

Because they didn’t have that structure in their game the Red Devils were able to put a lot of pressure on them.

But their defence was strong and stood up to the challenge.

Clarke’s main message to them at half-time was that they needed to build some structure.

They did that a bit better, and took on board the lessons Walcha taught them a couple of weeks ago.

He though never really felt comfortable.

“It felt right up to five minutes to go it could have gone either way,” Clarke said.

That was when Simon Clarke kicked the second of his penalty goals for the half.

His boot was the difference in the end.

Moving in from the wing to the centres for Josh Phillips, he had good game there outside of the 10 minutes he spent in the bin.

Clarke found it hard though to go past tighthead Brett Miller.

“He was absolutely outstanding,” he said.

“He had a lot of hit ups and defensively was great.”

Will Hollingsworth, shifting from the second row onto the side, also played well as did Tom Apthorpe.

Red Devils coach Jason Waerea also alluded to how physically tough it was.

“There was some brutal running and tackling going on,” Waerea said.

The breakdown battle was a crucial one, and while their backrow was amazing again and shut Inverell’s big guys down fairly well, the Highlanders put a lot of pressure on at the breakdown.

“They stopped us from dominating the breakdown as much as we have,” he said.

That affected their attack.

“We were getting some good plays and good breaks but we were not finishing off,” Waerea said.

“We probably just got a bit disconnected on our third or fourth phase play because they were disturbing our ruck play.”

“That has been a dominant part of our game.”

But they weren’t getting the same continuity from that, and it meant that the backs were either slightly on the back foot or waiting that bit longer for the ball.

That said, the midfield was again very strong.

They had to do a lot of defending with Highlanders throwing a lot of traffic their way, Waerea said.

Loosehead prop Ben Torrance was their best ahead of second rower Ben Morrison and breakaway Jeremy Brown.

Tighthead Josh Leys was also having “an absolute cracker of a game” before he was forced off with an ankle injury.