De La Salle create history with first win at Collegians Sports Complex

The visitors produced a brilliant wet weather display on Saturday to down Collegians 38-16.

The win was the first De La Salle has ever recorded at the home of the Dogs, and their fifth triumph from six starts this season to see the Trent Anderson-coached outfit lead the Illawarra Rugby League premiership standings after nine rounds.

An ecstatic Anderson praised his team's performance, adding De La Salle was out to create their own history this season.

"It's the first time our club has won at this ground. We've never won a finals game here and we've never beat Collegians here," he said.

"This year's about breaking history, and the one thing we're after is that prize at the end of the year.

"But I'm very proud of what we've done in the last two months, and we're going to look forward to finishing the season off well.

"I though we were very good today, especially in the second half.

"Our boys are fit and they're strong and we showed that but you can also see the tremendous spirit in this club and in this team. It's just a privilege to coach it.

"My dream job is coaching this club."

De La Salle started the game well and led 6-0 early courtesy of a converted try to Harry Samuel.

But midway through the half it was Collies who led 10-6 after tries to Jack Butler and Damon New and a goal to New.

Though the visitors then took control, with first Andrew Faddy crossing for a try before explosive centre Tre Fotu crossed for the first of his three-tries for the game to give De La Salle a 16-10 lead at halftime.

Collies would have been happy to only be six points behind but they started the second half poorly and were soon chasing the game after tries to Lachlan Araullo, Fotu and Jordan Swann extended De La Salle's lead to 22 with just on 16 minutes left to play.

Charly Runciman responded with a try for Collies in the 75^th minute but it was too little too late as Fotu completed his hat-trick with a brilliant try in the dying minutes of play.

Fotu and fellow centre Swann proved a handful for Collies' defence throughout the game but De La Salle coach Anderson was particularly impressed with the game of his young prop forward Luke Raymond.

"Luke was outstanding," he said.

"He played big minutes in the middle. He's great on both sides of the ball.

"They've got great middles with the Dowel boys and their captain Blake Phillips. We put the challenge to Luke and he more than met it.

"And for a young fellow, he's only 19 years old, he was outstanding.

"I thought our outside backs were also very good.

"We've got some special players there but more importantly it's about effort and attitude. You can have as much talent as you want but that means nothing with no effort and attitude. Fortunately we have both and we're reaping the rewards."

After almost two months on the road De La Salle will return home next week much to the pleasure of their coach.

"Seven weeks coming down here down the mountain, an hour and a half drive every week, we're looking forward to going home to our home crowd and putting on a performance next week," Anderson said.

"At the moment we are just going to celebrate and enjoy our first ever win here.

"We talk about goals and we talk about achievements and we we did mention at the start of the game that [winning here for the first time] was something we wanted to get off our back and we've done that, which we're very happy about."

Elsewhere on Saturday Wests hammered Corrimal Cougars 44-0 at Ziems Park.

Round nine continues on Sunday with the Thirroul Butchers playing Dapto Canaries at Thomas Gibson Park.