Rugby: Te Puke forwards crush Tauranga

Te Puke Sports No 8 Eru Wano-Smith had a storming game in the win over Tauranga Sports on Saturday. Photo / Andrew Warner

Te Puke Sports took all the spoils from the battle of the two unbeaten teams in the Bayfair Baywide Premier competition on Saturday.

The 18-3 win over Tauranga Sports was set up by Te Puke's powerful forward pack that gave the season-long competition leaders a mauling up front.

The muddy pitch at Te Puke's Murray Salt Stadium helped their forward domination. Te Puke played in pink to support breast cancer research and were clearly the more motivated of Bay of Plenty's two top club teams.

The game, played in front of a bumper crowd, was as good as over at halftime, with Te Puke ahead 15-3, after two identical rolling maul tries finished off by their top class No8 Eru Wano-Smith.

Te Puke Sports coach Craig Jeffries credits Te Puke's outstanding scrummaging to former Crusader and Highlander flanker Jake Paringatai, who has made a big impact on and off the field this season.

"We have put a big emphasis on set piece and Jake Paringatai coming into our group this year had added so much in that area," Jeffries said. "His ability to coach a scrum has been a massive part.

"Taking away tempo ball from [Tauranga] is the key. They look to go wide pretty quickly with fast ball, so we look to dominate the set piece to stop them getting that good quick ball."

Jeffries believes Wano-Smith deserves a Steamers contract.

"I would be amazed if Eru's left out of the Bay squad, the way he is playing. He outplayed the two Bay boys in that opposition today [Carl Axtens and Jesse Acton] and it wasn't even close, in my opinion."

Tauranga Sports coach Mike Rogers was gracious in defeat, refusing to use the unavailability of three key tight forwards for the hammering his team received up front.

"I don't want to make excuses for guys who weren't there. At the end of the day, Te Puke taught us a real lesson at set piece time. You are not going to win games of rugby in these conditions if you can't win your own ball, so fair play to them. They took us apart and they thoroughly deserve their win.

"Our set piece has been going really well all year but I don't know if the teams we have been playing necessarily have quality set piece. Maybe that has given us a false sense of security.

"We have a couple of weeks to get it right and hopefully next time we play Te Puke, in two or three weeks' time, we can put together a better effort than we did today."

Te Puke Sports 18 (Eru Wano-Smith 2 tries; Dan Hollinshead con, pen; Matty Cole drop goal) Tauranga Sports 3 (Nick Evemy pen)