Coates Hire 5

ZALUNARDO’S moved a step closer to securing a spot in the finals after comfortably defeating Coates Hire 11-5 in Griffith Men’s division four touch football on Monday night.

In what was its eighth win for the season, Zalunardo’s jumped out to an early lead, and despite several spirited fightbacks by Coates, the result was never seriously in doubt.

Zalunardo’s opened the scoring in the blink of an eye with Matt Salvestrin crossing to give his side the edge before Coates looked to have opened its account through Michael Young, only to see the last pass called forward.

Despite leading, Zalunardo’s was soon becoming its own worst enemy as several sloppy play the balls saw it cough up cheap possesion.

Adam Cavanagh looked dangerous for Zalunardo’s early, leading to Will Hannon setting up John Makarainen for the easy try in the in-goal area.

The lead became three soon after when Hannon sprinted through a gap that appeared out of nowhere, before Coates finally got on the board through an easy touchdown to Tyrel Litchfield for 3-1.

But any chance Coates had of keeping its foot in the door was quickly snuffed out just before half-time, when Zalunardo’s, through tries to Cavanaugh and Salvestrin gave it a handy five-try buffer.

Coates needed to be first to score to give itself any chance of a comeback, but Cavanaugh won a foot race from Coates’ Mark Dance to make it 7-1.

Luck was simply not going Coates’ way, after Zalunardo’s scored from a would-be intercept from Marc Burns, who instead only tipped to the scorer.

Despite the score blowing out towards the end of the game, Coates were able to scorer several consolation tries which will give them confidence as they strive for their fourth win of the season.