Club legend inspires Sydney Airport Jets
to win over Knights

Newtown icon Tom Raudonikis helped inspire the Sydney Airport Jets to a disciplined and impressive 34-10 win over the Newcastle Knights in the VB Premier League match played at the Energy Australia Stadium on Saturday evening.

Raudonikis travelled with the Jets on the team coach to and from Newcastle, and addressed the team in his own inimitable fashion prior to the game and at half-time. Newtown turned in a near faultless display in the first half, with an excellent completion rate and virtually nil errors or missed tackles, going in at the break with a 24-0 lead. The Knights fought back in the second half, with Newtown conceding unnecessary penalties that gifted the home team good field position on a number of occasions.

Skipper Craig Field was Newtown's best player on the night, scoring two tries and repeatedly pinning the Knights deep in their own quarter with a series of superbly-weighted kicks. Hard-working forwards Tommy Gemmell and Phillip Leuluai played almost the entire game without a break, and received strong support from fellow packmen James Stosic, Dan Manousso and Nelson Lomi. Hooker Chris Williams had his best game of the season, and wingers Sioeli Helu and Ben Cook had particularly sound games. Five-eighth David Hall continued his recent good form.

Many thanks to Matthew ?Bluey? Hassett, son of popular club sponsor Anthony Hassett from the Carlisle Castle Hotel, Newtown, who stepped in at short notice to deputise very capably as the team?s ballboy.

Newtown fielded a very much rebuilt team in the Jim Beam Cup fixture at Windsor, going down to the third-placed Wolves by 40-16. Forwards Joe Murphy, Dane O'Donnell, Warren Weiss and Laurie Bamblett played well, while in the backline Canowindra product Todd Fisher impressed on his debut, and Hamilton Hughes was again one of Newtown's best. Matthieu Julia made a successful return to the playing field after suffering a broken jaw against Western Suburbs at Campbelltown Stadium. Evergreen clubman Luke Ellis also returned to the Newtown fold after a successful off-season stint with the Lyon club in France.

This Saturday (June 5) sees a big afternoon of traditional inner-city local derbies at Henson Park. In the VB Premier League match at 3pm, the Sydney Airport Jets take on the Balmain Tigers in a battle for inner west Rugby League supremacy, while in the Jim Beam Cup curtain-raiser at 1.15pm, Newtown hosts Souths Juniors in another all-local "needle" match.

In other news:

Craig Penning is a former Newtown RLFC player and trainer, and remains a strongly committed club member and supporter.

He has devoted a fantastic amount of time to developing and patenting a sophisticated tackling training system that is applicable to several codes of football.

His tackling system will be on show on The New Inventors program this Wednesday night, June 2nd, 8pm, on ABC-TV. Craig, all the very best for the program and for future sales!