Houdini is alive and well.
The PNBHS Colts travelled to Wellington on Wednesday to play a big, physical, well drilled Wellington College Colts side on a sunny, still day in the Capital. It has been a number of years since the PNBHS Colts has tasted success against Wellington College so the team was under no illusion of the enormity of the task that lay ahead.
The game couldn’t have started worse for PNBHS. The scrums were awful, the lineouts were awful, the passing was awful and the communication was woeful.
PNBHS went in to the break 17 nil down, and lucky to be on 0.
At halftime the team took a deep breath, looked each other in the eye, and the senior players set out the plan for the second half.
The team came out zinging, as if someone had spiked their water bottles and took the game to Wellington with Lafo Takiari scoring 2 trademark tries mid second half, both converted by Love.
A “home town” penalty to Wellington in front of the PNBHS posts shortly after allowed the home team to add another 3 points to their total, 20-14 Wellington.
With 6 minutes to go and some smart rugby played by PNBHS, try line pressure resulted in Logan Love charging down a clearing kick and scoring out wide. The missed conversion meant a score line of 20-19 to Wellington with time almost up.
With 3 minutes left, Elijah Croswell bravely took the kick off which ended in a 30m rampaging run by the runaway steam train Nasser Tato that saw him score the winning try in the corner with would be tacklers hanging off him left, right and centre. 24-19 to PNBHS.
From the ensuing kick off and with a minute to go, PNBHS gave possession away to Wellington who had one last opportunity to steal the game back. A long pass out to their left wing was expertly plucked from the heavens by PNBHS winger Liam Todd who raced 70m downfield to score under the posts to seal the win. The conversion saw PNBHS come away with a win 31-20, much to the disappointment of the stunned Wellington players and supporters.
This win showed that this Colts team has courage and commitment but more importantly players with cool, calm rugby brains. At half time it looked like a 50 point hiding might be on the cards for PNBHS however the players themselves worked out how to nullify the big Wellington forward pack and launch their own lethal attacks which resulted in both a second half territorial advantage and points.
A great win for the team, however the coaches and parents would prefer the players didn’t leave their run to the tape so late in the game.
