Losing their captain Penioni Tagituimua in the eleventh hour after he was drafted into the North Sydney Bears club had an impact on the Kaiviti Silktails.

The players took time to settle down and even blew away an early lead.

The side played a chasing game before they found their mojo but it was too late as a strong Hills Bulls side ran away with a 30-20 win at the Mascot Oval in Sydney, on Saturday evening.

Silktails coach, Wes Naiqama, made a few positional changes as Waisale Nayavuyaca was moved to replace Tagituimua at halfback during Round 11 of the Ron Massey Cup competition.

This also paved way for new leadership granting the huge responsibility to seasoned campaigner Pio Seci- one who commands their respect on account of maturity and his humble character.

However, Naiqama praised the performance of the players as there were positive signs throughout the game.

“The boys fought right to the final whistle,” the former NRL centre said.

“However, there are certainly learnings to take away from this one to better our chances of a playoffs finish.

“We will regroup and will build for a better outing in the next round,” he added.

What happened: The Fijian side got to a head start with a try from high-powered prop Josaia Raboiliku in the 3rd minute of play.

But what seemed to be a winning start for the Siktails skipped tides, with the Bulls Tom Carr scoring a double in a space of four minutes.

Bulls had two tries to winger Maile Li and one of their prop to keep them alive against the Fijians. Then just before halftime hooter, the nifty five-eighth Sunia Naruma crafted his way through Bulls defence for his first try of the season to add points to the board.

Halftime: Silktails 10-20 Bulls.

Robust Pio Seci and his team came firing off the blocks at the second spell to level the scores 20-all with tries to Sunia Naruma and centre Inoke Vasuturaga.

But the Bulls overpowered the Silktails to secure their victory with two more tries to Tevita Alifa and Maile Le had his second try of the day at full-time.

Edited by Leone Cabenatabua 

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