1st XV vs St Pat's Town
Saturday 19 May
The 1st XV finished their pre-season campaign
with a game against St Pat’s Town of Wellington. The game was played in blustery conditions,
but was dry during the game and on a good surface. With a large number of players unavailable through
injury, this game was also an excellent opportunity for players outside the
squad to showcase their wares.
The game started well enough for the team with the wind at our backs and our kicking game pinning the opposition inside their 22. An early penalty gave us a three point lead and our defensive screen, to the fore against Scots the previous week, was again working well against the big St Pat’s runners. Our set piece again struggled to deliver consistent ball, but we were able to make breaks through their midfield when ball was delivered. A searing break from Stewart Cruden from a scrum resulted in the first try of the game to Will Treder midway through the first half. Our phase play was working well, however we were guilty of over committing at times at rucks. This meant when we attempted to go wide, we struggled for numbers to attack and thus resorted to kicking to the corners when ball in hand was an option. We scored a further penalty to go out to a 13-3 lead, only to let them in for a soft try right on the stroke of half time. Fortunately, they missed a fairly simple conversion and so it was 13-8 at the half.
The half time chat was around the need to make better decisions at ruck time, fix the lineout woes and make our tackles. We felt they had shown us all they had and so our plans were going to be effective providing we were accurate.
To the team’s absolute credit, the opening ten minutes of the second half was all accuracy and pace and two tremendous tries were scored. Suddenly we found our range at lineout time and our ability to get wide was aided by more support. Will Treder and Jayden Keelan were the beneficiaries of this play and 13- 8 became 25-8 in the blink of an eye. Our midfield maintained their direct approach and we were getting in behind the opposition regularly. We then became a little guilty of trying to go around the defence and were caught running sideways too often through the middle period of the second half. Again with straightening, we created further opportunities to score and two further tries to Armani Tupai and Korie Winters cemented the win. Tupai’s try in particular was a superb wingers try with gas and evasion.
In the end, another pleasing win from a fairly inexperienced team. The depth showed the benefit of the rugby development that is being done at PNBHS with the younger players taking their chances with aplomb.
The next game is the first round of the Super 8 with the might of Gisborne Boys’ High School making the journey to play us on our home ground.
Points Scorers:
Tries: Will Treder x 2
Jayden Keelan
Armami Tupai
Korie Winters
Penalties: Stewart Cruden x2
Conversions: Stewart Cruden x 2
To see more photos of the game, please click on the following link - St Pat's Town
