The gate stood at about $3000, which Needer thought was terrific. 

He said he was the happiest man in Tingha at the moment, especially with the Tiger’s win against the Inverell Hawks on the day.

“It was a big day. The boys played really well.

“It’s the best I’ve seen them play,” he said.

“They just put it all together on the day. It was a very popular win, nearly as good as winning the grand final.”

“And there were a fair few stayed back and it was a good night, yeah.”

Needer estimated a crowd of about 1000 attended on the day, but said he would not know how much was raised for the club until tomorrow or Thursday.

“We auctioned off all the jerseys, but I don’t know where we’re up to yet,” he said.

“It was a great success and I’d just like to thank everybody who helped out.”

He said he is expecting this week’s game against the Moree Boomerangs to be a hard one.

“They’re the team to beat,” Needer said.

“It would be good to have the same enthusiasm in that game as we had against the Hawks. We had plenty of players in that game. We have beat the Boomerangs before, but a couple of years can make a lot of difference. But, they’re all beatable on the day. It’s just a matter of putting it all together; anything can happen.”

Needer said Cameron Toomey, Guy Mepham and Scott Fitzgrald all deserved a mention from the weekend’s game.  

Inverell Hawks president Gary Lavender said he thought it was a good day for Tingha both on and off the field.

“The fundraiser would have been a bit of a motivation for them, too,” Lavender said.

“Spoke to Pete Stephens this morning. He said we couldn’t have trained any better and the preparation was good. Just the enthusiasm was lacking, I think, and quite a few missed tackles, from the reports.

“I’d say we were ‘out-enthused’,” Lavender laughed.

The weekend’s result saw the Hawks drop back to fourth spot on the ladder.

“I think Moree have leap-frogged us. We play them this weekend and this is the one we want to win. We can lose one more game, but we don’t want to go down that path,” Lavender said.

“They were a side that was struggling on away games, but put a function on with Inverell in it, and I think they would probably come out of the woodwork, and I think they did!”