Greerton's Ajay Mua delievered a standout performance for their team against Whakarewarewa on Saturday. Photo / Ben Fraser
Greerton's Ajay Mua delievered a standout performance for their team against Whakarewarewa on Saturday. Photo / Ben Fraser
are the only remaining Rotorua club in the Baywide premier rugby competition and after suffering a loss to Greerton in the opening of the championship round on home ground, they are forced to travel to Tauranga to hunt a win.
Greerton secured a 17-6 victory over Whakarewarewa in the firstweek of the championship round of the Farmlands Co-operative Baywide Premier competition on Saturday, with Greerton head coach Kane Parker impressed with his team's strong performance.
"I put it down to our defence. We've done a lot of work on our defence and it definitely paid off," Parker said.
It's a positive start to round two of the competition for Greerton.
"The boys are pretty happy, especially after last week [losing to Tauranga Sports 30-14], we weren't happy at all ... and to put a performance on like they did [on Saturday] we're happy campers for another week," Parker says. Greerton's stand out performances came from openside flanker Ajay Mua, hooker Jonas Petrakopoulos, fullback Pierre Pilli and number eight Joe Key.
This weekend Greerton face Rangiuru and while they'd like to take out the competition, it's not their focus at this point.
"The way we're looking at it as a group is there's no more important game than the game we've got on Saturday. We're not thinking ahead of ourselves at all, we've got Rangiuru [this] week and that'll be a tough game and basically, you know, from there you've just got to throw all your eggs into the basket.
"It's only seven games and it's going to go really, really quickly."
Whakarewarewa player Dennon Robinson-Bartlett leaps for the ball in week one of the championship round of the Baywide Club Rugby Premier competition. Photo / Ben Fraser
For Whakarewarewa, head coach Boxer Smith says even though the home team put out tough scrums and strong lineouts, players' heads were not in the game.
"Full credit to Greerton, they really defended well and I think at the end of the day they just wanted it a little bit more, a little bit more hungry," Smith says.
"I think they're going to be a bit of a dark horse to be honest for this second championship round, I think they could make the top four," he says.
The home side were down about five players due to other commitments and some "niggly" injuries but Smith says that is no excuse for the weekend's performance. Low energy levels and failure to capitalise on their strengths were the main weaknesses, he says.
"Early days but at the start of this champion round you need to build momentum and take the wins."
This weekend, Whakarewarewa head to Murray Salt Stadium to take on Te Puke, who suffered their first loss of the season to Tauranga Sports on Saturday, going down 34-10.
Smith says going into week two they hope to have a few players back in action.
"It's going to be hard for us now, we've got to travel to Tauranga and try and hunt a win.
