Poneke Key Protagonists In Race To Play-Offs

Defending champions Poneke lead the Jubilee points ladder by two after a closely contested round five set of games. Poneke scraped past Petone, while Northern United held on to beat Avalon, Marist St, Pats edged out Tawa and Hutt Old Boys Marist were too strong for fellow strugglers Old Boys-University. But with only two round-robin weeks remaining, only these latter two are out of contention for a semi final berth. Such is the closeness of the competition if Poneke lose next week they could slip to fourth. While fifth placed MSP look to have the easier ride home of all, with final match-ups against HOBM and OBU.

It was tough going in this week?s feature match between leading sides Poneke and Petone at Kilbirnie Park. The adverse weather conditions, coupled with the poor state of the playing field, which in places was a quagmire, with large areas of mud and surface water, sadly reduced its cadence to more of a slugfest, and rendered the attacking prowess of both teams largely redundant. Nevertheless, both outfits showed glimpses of the sort of form that see them as frontrunners in the Cup.

Nothing could separate the two sides after the first half, which saw Petone go into the break leading 6-3, courtesy of two penalties to first five Nick Kirton versus one to his counterpart Steve McColl. Petone came out firing early in the second spell though and quickly pulled ahead further with a well worked try near the corner flag to blindside Duane Iupeli. No. 8 Martin Leslie assailed from a five-metre scrum and offloaded to Iupeli, who crashed over.

This spurred Poneke into action and they then spent a 15-minute period camped in Petone?s 22, desperate to find a way through, but the Villagers were equal to the task on defence. However, a mistake in clearing the ball from Petone from behind their own line gave centre Elvis Feu?u a fortuitous try for the red-and-blacks. A harried Petone wing Willie Moala, punted straight across field, and with the help of the southerly breeze his kick held up to land in his in-goal - and Feu?u only had to dive on it to score. McColl kicked the tricky conversion and it was a one-point ball game.

Poneke quickly got straight back to Petone?s end and were awarded a penalty. McColl again made no mistake and Poneke now led by two. The Villagers never gave up, but couldn?t breech the now determined Poneke defence and the home side held on for the valuable win.

Elsewhere, Avalon were unlucky not to equalise with Norths in the dying stages of their clash when wing Geoff Packer just failed to score in the corner. Norths deserved the victory though after turning out another of their now trademark defensive efforts to deny Avalon. Tawa?s mid-season momentum deserted them once again when they went down in by a solitary point to MSP in their clash, while HOBM finally had something to cheer about when they outlasted OBU in another tight struggle.