Petone, Tawa out in front after two rounds

Above: Wests Roosters halfback Matthew Goosen gets a pass away in his team's round two match at Nairnville Park against Poneke. Wests wore the colours of the old Onslow club who amalgamated with Athletic to form Western Suburbs, now the Wests Roosters, in 1983.

UPDATED: Petone and Tawa are out in front in the Swindale Shield after two rounds with two bonus point wins under their engines after respective round two wins on Saturday over two of last year's Jubilee Cup semi-finalists, Northern United and Wainuiomata.

Petone, who only scraped into last year's Jubilee Cup round by virtue of a superior points differential over Old Boys-University, have made a rollicking start to this year's Swindale Shield with wins over the Wests Roosters and now Norths, both at home.

Norths scored first, through win AJ Va'alepu, but Petone worked themselves into the match and veteran midfielder Cam Incledon crossed on halftime to give Petone a lead at the turnaround.

Petone won the second half 19-3, scoring another three unanswered tries. Representative midfielder Nick Grigg scored two tries.

Tawa did all the damage in the first half of their match against Wainuiomata at William Jones Park against Wainuiomata, winning 35-12 after scoring three tries and leading 25-0 at halftime. Fullback Randall Bishop scored a try in the first minute of the match and it was an uphill battle for the home side throughout the rest of the contest.?

Old Boys-University were the biggest winners of the day, running through Rimutaka at Maoribank Park and winning 85-3. Ten players scored 13 tries, which included a hat-trick to lock Dan Mellon and a brace to Wellington U20 wing Te Wehi Wright.

Defending Jubilee Cup champions Marist St. Pat's pulled clear to comfortably beat home side Upper Hutt at Maidstone Park, winning 37-16. Hooker Liu Tautavave had an active game, scoring a hat-trick of tries and also being sin-binned. In a clinical performance, MSP's bigger forwards wound down Upper Hutt's to get their season underway.

Poneke also grabbed their second consecutive win of the new season, beating the Wests Roosters 36-16 at Ian Galloway Park. Wellington Sevens player and openside flanker scored two quickfire tries late in the second half to seal victory for the red and blacks over Wests who were playing in the former strip of the old Onslow club to mark 30 years of amalgamation between Onslow and Athletic.

However, foremost on everyone's minds is the health of their popular hooker Andrew Castle who was injured early in the match and had to be taken to hospital. The game was held up for over half an hour.

At the Polo Ground, the HOBM Eagles celebrated blindside flanker Polonga Pedro's 200th game with a hard fought 30-25 win over Ories.

Both sides scored three tries, but it was the goal-kicking of first five-eighth Brandyn Laursen that proved key on the scoreboard.

HOBM played well into the wind for the first 20 minutes of the second spell when they put on a point a minute and turned a 10-15 halftime deficit into a match winning 30-18 lead.

Avalon and Old Boys-University both have the maximum 10 competition points after two rounds of the Senior 1 Harper Lock Shield after their wins today.

Avalon ran over Poneke to win 76-3, while Old Boys University were made to work extremely hard for their? bonus point win 29-28 win over Johnsonville. The Wellington Axemen got their first win of the season, beating Paremata-Plimmerton 37-26 in a re-match of last August's Senior 1 Ed Chaney Cup Final.

In the other Senior 1 games, MSP defeated Upper Hutt 43-24, Wainuiomata beat Tawa 28-19 and Petone overcame Norths 31-5.

There was a series of close games in the second round of the Senior 2 National Mutual Cup.

The margins of victory in five of the six Senior 2 games was within a converted try. The two closest games saw the Wests Roosters pip Poneke 13-12 and HOBM edge Ories 10-9.Avalon defeated OBU 36-33, Norths beat Petone 25-21 and Wainuiomata overcame MSP 18-13.
In the sixth match, Johnsonville beat Stokes Valley 35-8.

HOBM, Avalon and Norths are the three unbeaten teams after two rounds of the Senior 2 competition.

To read full match reports from all six Round Two Swindale Shield games click here

?