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HERMIT Park Tigers had a simple game plan that led them to a morale-boosting triumph over University on Saturday - simple, that is, in theory, not so much execution.

But the AFL Townsville Premiership club pulled it off to perfection.

Tigers coach Barry Gibson gave defender Stafford Jones the unenviable task of marking Uni goal-scoring machine Travis Modra, with the instruction: ''Keep Modra under three goals and we win the game.''

Jones kept Modra to two and Hermit Park won 11.12 (78) to 9.6 (60).

''(Modra's) been averaging five-and-a-half, six goals a game and we spoke about that at training on Thursday,'' Gibson said.

''I said to the guys, 'it's probably the biggest job in football in Townsville to try and play on him and stop him', because he's so smart and he's so wily about how he gets it and I just thought Staffie did an outstanding job.

''Both (Modra's) goals came from free kicks in front of goal. He had a couple of snaps that he missed, but he was under pressure. Staff just did a really good job to be disciplined enough to stay with him and not get caught ball-watching.''

Minus ''two mongrel dogs'' in Chas Reinhardt and Scott Males, among numerous other unavailabilities, the Tigers needed their senior players to stand up and Jones, Andrew Gubba and Matt Tebble did exactly that.

It was just the result needed after Hermit Park's season hit a low point last week when they were thrashed by Thuringowa.

After a tight opening term, the Tigers blew their opponents away in the second, racing to a 41-point lead by the main break.

While Uni continued to fight, it was too much ground to make up.

''We had a big week on the (training) track and talked about our physical pressure and I thought what we put in on the track came out in the game,'' Gibson said.

''A lot of guys had to stand up in the contest and I thought they did that well.''

In the other game, Thuringowa pumped Curra 25.19 (169) to 7.6 (42) at Muldoon Oval.