Comeback wins for Wellington Pride and Development teams

The Wellington Pride and the Wellington Development teams both came back from slow starts to win well in their respective representative matches at the Petone Recreation Ground today.

In the first match of the afternoon the Wellington Pride defeated Canterbury 32-18 in their Women’s NPC match, in the second game Wellington Development defeated the Hawke’s Bay Saracens 54-26.

The Pride came back from 0-8 behind midway through the first half to trail Canterbury 7-8 at halftime and then power past them with a burst of into-the-wind scoring in the second spell.

Playing against the wind, the Development trailed the Saracens 15-26 at the break, but upped the ante and unleased a strong reserves bench to score 39 points and five second half tries including a late brace to replacement fullback Sam McNicol.

The win for the Pride has seen them book a Women’s NPC semi-final place with next week’s final round match against Bay of Plenty to spare.

With one round to play, the Pride are third behind big guns Auckland who’s 101-0 win today over BoP sees them maintain their lead. Auckland are on 24 points, Waikato 20, Wellington 20 and Counties Manukau 17. A bonus point win over BoP next week would see the Pride finish no lower than third and likely avoid Auckland in the playoffs, whilst they could yet earn a home semi-final.

The Wellington Development team took out the Central Region Development XV Competition for the second consecutive year with this win. Their season continues over the next fortnight with matches against their Tasman and Auckland counterparts.

Manawatu Development defeated the Wellington Samoans 29-22 in Palmerston North in the other Development Competiton match today. 

The Wellington U18s won the 2015 Trust Bank Central Secondary School Shield today. The Wellington U18s defeated Wellington Samoan Schools 15-7. Elsewhere, the Wairarapa Bush U18s defeated East Coast U18 65-8 and Horowhenua Kapiti U18 defeated Wanganui 51-29 in two other matches. 

The Wellington Pride were met by a vigorous Canterbury side, who hit them hard early with a wide, fast-paced approach on attack and with a smothering defensive screen, particularly in the midfield to try and shut down in-form centre Georgia Daals and the outside backs.

The red and blacks were on-song early when halfback Kendra Cocksedge drifted wide from an attacking scrum and sent right wing Keisha Grant over to score in the corner.

The Pride were held up over the line attempting an equaliser, but Canterbury worked their way up field again and Cocksedge kicked a penalty to extend their lead to 8-0.

The Pride’s loose forward trio of Player of the Match and captain Jackie Patea, Aimee Sutorius and Carol Sio were warming to their work and Wellington got themselves into the game.

First five-eighth Lizzie Goulden kicked ahead, Canterbury’s defenders made a meal of tidying the ball up and Wellington attacked through a 5-metre scrum. From the next play, Patea crashed over to score a converted try.

The Pride struck early in the second half with their second try, Goulden putting a neat kick in behind Canterbury’s defence and Daals following up with some fancy footwork to force an attacking lineout and a resulting forwards try.

Goulden and Cocksedge then exchanged penalties and the Pride led 15-11 after 50 minutes.

From there, the Pride pulled ahead and didn’t look back, winning the ball back from the next re-start swinging on to attack and left wing Ayesha Leti-l’iga crossing in the corner.

The forwards then scored their next try from driving play, Goulden converting this bonus point score to put them in front 27-11.

Canterbury replied with a period on attack and flanker Estelle Uren scored to close the gap to 27-18 with 15 minutes still to play.

Having emptied their bench, the Pride launched another sustained raid and Goulden capped off a great game by sending a kick-pass across to the unmarked right wing Ruby Finau and she scored their first try to seal victory.

Strike power off the bench was also a telling factor in the Wellington Development’s runaway win over the Hawke’s Bay Saracens in the match that followed.

The starting XV battled hard against a committed, sharp Hawke’s Bay team in the first half.

Wellington scored the opening try after only a couple of minutes to halfback Adam Deck, but much of the rest of the first half was all Hawke’s Bay. Their forwards drove over for two tries and they scored two more from long-range and led 19-10 and then 26-15.

With super-subs such as Fa’atonu Fili, Mateaki Kafatolu, Valentine Meachen, Luke Campbell and Sam McNicol, returning from injury, joining the fray, the Development side sailed home in the second half to win easily.

No. 8 Teariki Ben Nicholas opened the second half scoring with Wellington’s bonus point try and then replacement flyhalf Fili sent through a pair of penalties to lock the scores up at 26-26 after about 50 minutes.

Replacement flanker Kafatolu made a burst in centre field and found lock Joe Beech, flanker Issac O’Connor and speedster Max Pearson in support to score Wellington’s next try to put them in front 33-26.

Wellington pushed Hawke’s Bay off their own defensive scrum, Kafatolu strolled over to score and Fili added the extras to make it 40-26.

Replacement fullback McNicol, a former Hawke’s Bay schoolboy star, raced through to score Wellington’s final two tries to seal a half century win.

Wellington Pride 32 (Jackie Patea, Ayesha Leti-l’iga, TBC, TBC, Ruby Finau tries; Lizzie Goulden pen, 2 con) beat Canterbury 18 (Keisha Grant, Estelle Uren tries; Kendra Cocksedge 2 pen, con). HT: 7-8.

Wellington Development 54 (Sam McNicol 2, Adam Deck, Sam Gard’ner, Hunter Prescott, Teariki Ben-Nicholas, Max Pearson, Mateaki Kafatolu tries; Fa’atonu Fili 2 pen, 4 con) beat Hawke’s Bay Saracens 26. HT: 15-26