Poneke, Petone, OBU Dominate On Gala Day

Playing through Jubilee Cup holders Poneke looked every inch a champion team as they crushed Northern United amidst the club gala day at the Petone Recreation Ground. Petone enjoyed home ground success with a similar emphatic trouncing of Oriental-Rongotai and Old Boys-University ran rings around Johnsonville in another one sided affair. Meanwhile the other three games were more closely contested. Hutt Old Boys Marist came from behind to upset neighbours Avalon, Marist St. Pats triumphed over Tawa and Upper Hutt sneaked past Western Suburbs in a ding-dong battle.

The Club Weekly watched two of these match-ups: Upper Hutt versus Wests, followed by Poneke versus Norths. In the main game, Poneke outplayed Norths, outscoring them four tries to one. All Poneke’s tries came through the forwards. It wasn’t pretty, nor was it spectacular, but it meant that by covering the basics and sticking to a structured game plan Poneke was able to negate the threat out-wide and in broken play that Norths posed and win convincingly.

Norths struck first though when a frantic build-up was finished off with a try in the corner to fullback Daniel Bone. Undeterred the Poneke forwards then proceeded to dismantle their Norths counterparts. Playing with patience and cohesiveness they gained a huge set-piece advantage and subsequently their two first half tries, scored by openside Iva Motusaga and No 8 Adam Holloway, off lineout drives, were carbon copies of each other. A 20-metre rolling maul, again from a lineout, saw captain Eugene Morgan crash over for Poneke early in the second half. Norths tried desperately to get back into the match, but they were repeatedly met by resolute Poneke defence. Poneke then sealed it with a try to prop George Faletolu and a penalty on fulltime.

Earlier only a slight edge in firepower out-wide to Upper Hutt, thanks to the return of fullback Cory Jane and first five eighth Ben Aoina and a hasty rearrangement of the Wests backline due to injuries early on, could separate those sides. There was no love lost between Wests and Upper Hutt, particularly in the forward exchanges, which were hotly contested throughout. Upper Hutt scored three excellent tries through the backs in the first spell, including two to Jane and despite only trailing by one point for much of the second half, Wests found themselves playing catch-up rugby.

In other games, OBU’s exciting backline combined to thrash Johnsonville. Three tries each to centre Conrad Smith and wing Vince Curtin and two to fullback Shannon Paku were highlights. OBU’s test will come when they meet stronger forward packs however. Petone enjoyed local support with an impressive six tries to one win over Ories, while giant-killers HOBM came storming back from an 11-23 deficit to eclipse Avalon and MSP had their second solid, if unspectacular, win of the season, edging past an underrated Tawa outfit.