St Bedes/Mentone Tigers Seniors went down by 10 points to Old Trinity at Bulleen on Saturday to register their first defeat for the year. The Tigers started briskly winning everything out of the centre and had 3 majors on the board before Trinity had troubled the scorer, however, that changed in the second half of the term as Trinity tightened up to bang on a couple of their own into the slight breeze to trail by 20 points at the first break. In the second, the Green Men took control of the game and showed the Tigers, who were struggling to get any traction whatsoever in their forward line, how to play the ground but in the end were only able to register 3 goals while keeping the Mentone team goalless to still trail by the solitary point at half time. After the long break, St Bedes came out firing and with Luke Wintle dominating in the ruck and Jack Hellier, Sam Anstey and Luke Collins again controlling everything at ground level the Tigers surged out to a 14 point lead but couldn’t break the Trinity team who responded with goals of their own. The Tigers again got out to a 14 point lead but the locals reigned them in again and after an entertaining 11 goal quarter St Bedes took an 8 point lead to the final break. Again the Tigers came out of the blocks hard to take the lead out to 15 points and looked to be finishing the stronger but Old Trinity showed why they had beaten Old Xavs 3 weeks earlier as they contested and ran and moved the ball with skill to kick 3 majors and take the lead for the first time in the match at the 10 minute mark. From this point the contest was on as first one team then the other pushed the ball forward only to be denied by desperate back lines. In the end Trinity got the break to get out to a 10 point lead which they deservedly held until the final siren to bring the Tigers unblemished record for 2011 to an end and to announce that they are a very skilful, hard-running side who will be very difficult to beat on their home turf. •The Reserves had a comfortable 83 point victory, the Thirds recorded their first win for the year by 74 points while the U19s came from 6 goals behind at quarter time to grind out a draw with Uni Blues at home. Next Saturday the Tigers journey to Bulleen again to take on newly-promoted Old Carey who are already making their presence felt in VAFA Premier Division.