Tight round two sets up exciting season ahead

Swindale Shield round two: Wellington club rugby fans were kept on their edge of their seats on Saturday in a tightly fought second round set of Swindale Shield matches played, in fine and blustery conditions. A series of competitive games made for tense finishes in four of the six matches, including one draw and two that went right down to the wire. After two rounds there are four unbeaten teams led by Petone and Poneke who each have one bonus point win from their opening two encounters.

There was a 10-10 draw at Nairnville Park between the Wests Roosters and Old Boys-University where, for the second week in a row, the Roosters were pipped for valuable competition points at the death. OBU went wide from an attacking scrum and sent winger Sheldon Goodin over in the corner to tie the scores all up.

In a tight tussle, the Roosters had led 10-0 at halftime with the gusty northwesterly in their favour, centre Alama Pisa scoring a try and first five-eighth Esava Tiko adding a conversion and a penalty. OBU came back with a try to first five-eighth Nathan Alley but Wests protected their lead throughout the second half, only to see the students breach their line on fulltime. Wests had previously lost their opening round match 21-24 to Hutt Old Boys Marist after conceding an equalising penalty on fulltime.

In other matches, there were second successive wins for each of Petone over Northern United, Poneke over Marist St. Pat's, Oriental-Rongotai over Upper Hutt and HOBM over Wainuiomata, while Tawa grabbed their first victory of the season over Avalon.

In two significant results of the second week's play, Petone defeated Norths 30-25 at home at the Petone Recreation Ground, to hand Norths its second loss of 2009, and Poneke overcame Marist St. Pat's 18-8 at Evans Bay Park, to inflict the first defeat of MSP on their home patch for almost two years and also claim the inaugural Miller-Horan Trophy between these sides.

Petone made it back-to-back wins to start their season on the back of a strong first half with the wind in their favour, sailing to a 24-10 lead and then digging deep in the second to hold off a Norths comeback. Norths outscored Petone five tries to three, including two to lock Chris Middleton, but couldn't convert any of their tries, while Petone's kickers Corey Burt and Hayden Cripps were on-song in sending over three penalties and landing all three conversions. Petone led just by just two points heading towards fulltime, but a Cripps penalty at the death gave them some breathing space at the end.

All Poneke's trademark defensive qualities were called upon to hold off a resurgent Marist St Pat's throughout the second half, after MSP threatened to comeback and overhaul Poneke's 13-0 halftime lead when halfback Peter Sciascia took a tap penalty and scored an excellent solo try.

Sciascia's try provided a much-needed spark for MSP to get back into the contest after an indifferent first half characterised by a high error rate and a lack of fluidity on attack. But Poneke were able to shut them out and with five minutes remaining converted loose forward Misipalauni Moananu scored the match winner.

In a thriller at Maidstone Park, Ories pipped home side Upper Hutt 34-32, Ories surviving a late Upper Hutt comeback after they had pulled away to lead 28-18 with the wind at their backs through an intercept try to centre Paula Kinikinilau and another to first five-eighth James Proctor. Upper Hutt had led 10-9 at the end of a hard fought first half but Ories scored all their three tries after the break with the wind in their favour. Proctor's personal haul for the match was 24 points, including five penalties.

Hutt Old Boys Marist remain unbeaten after two rounds after beating Wainuimoata at William Jones Park 24-10, outscoring Wainuiomata three tries to two and fullback James Kusel also slotting four penalties.

In the widest margin of victory of the afternoon, Tawa pulled away from Avalon to win 46-7 at Lyndhurst Park. It was tight early on until Tawa, with the wind, crossed for three converted tries in quick time to give them a 27-0 at halftime. They then added three more after the break to secure their opening win of the 2009 season, blindside flanker Steven Sasagi scoring a double and Gene Johnston kicking five conversions and two penalties.

The Club Weekly was at Evans Bay Park where Poneke scored two vital tries to overcome defending champions MSP, one to Moananu at the end and the other to dynamic lock Daniel Ramsay on the tick of halftime, which proved decisive.

For the second week in a row the former Southland lock produced one of the key plays in the game - last week against Norths fielding a high kick and running 40 metres to score and in this game intercepting a pass in broken play and galloping almost half the length of the field to score unopposed.

Ramsay rushed through to make a spot tackle on MSP first five-eighth Fa'atonu Fili as he received a hurried clearing pass by halfback Sciascia and instead grabbed an intercept and pinned his ears back to run through to score. First five-eighth Adrian Grey added the extras to go with two earlier penalties and Poneke were suddenly ahead 13-0.

In a tight opening first half, Ramsey's try was just about the only clean break by either team during the entire 40 minutes. Fili had carved through the midfield to nearly set up a try to prop Arden David for MSP, while Poneke left wing Ambrose Plaister threatened with a couple of runs but was well held in separate bootlace tackles.

MSP closed the deficit to 8-13 on the hour mark following Sciascia's try and a Fili penalty, but they were left to rue their own lack of accuracy and continued errors as the clock wound down. They had the better of the next 15 minutes and should have scored at least twice with a clear overlap up the shortside and again through a series of penalties and attacking scrums on Poneke's tryline.

Instead it was a 14-man Poneke who took their opportunities, Moananu crashing over from a series of trademark forward drives for an unbeatable 11-point advantage with replacement halfback Brad Faulkner watching from the sin-bin at the other end of the field. Moananu's try was his second in as many weeks for the Poneke talisman who has previously played almost a decade a half and over 150 games as a midfielder and is now turning out as a loose forward.

Poneke have made a great start to their season in knocking over Norths and Marist St Pat's in a fortnight, while for MSP, the loss was their first in 16 games going back to April 2007 at Evans Bay Park, and they have not had a win and a loss in 2009.

Meanwhile, Rimutaka beat Johnsonville 20-6 in the feature match of the Senior One Harper Lock Shield played at Maoribank Park, while Tawa and Hutt Old Boys Marist earned their second successive bonus point wins of the Senior Two National Mutual Cup with wins over Avalon and Wainuiomata respectively. In the Women's Fleurs trophy, defending champions Johnsonville, Norths and Old Boys-University remain unbeaten on maximum points.

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