OBM No.8 Gabe Te Kani — who was shown a yellow card in the first half — was the victors’ MVP (most valuable player) and one of the game’s grittiest contributors.
Run of play
Terekia opened the scoring 16 minutes into the first half with a try to put OBM 5-0 up.
Ngatapa centre Peter Livingston potted a penalty goal to close it to 5-3 in the 20th minute.
In the 25th minute, tighthead prop Lance Dickson scored OBM’s second try, which with first five-eighth John Jones’s conversion made the score 12-3.
In the 28th minute, Te Kani was sin-binned by referee Isaac Hughes.
Livingston kicked his second penalty, in the 33rd minute, to close it to six points at 12-6, but Jones kicked a penalty a minute before the break to make it 15-6 at halftime.
Jones’s second penalty — 50 minutes in — made the score 18-6.
Ngatapa hooker Ihaia Kerr received a yellow card in the 68th minute.
OBM second-five Jake Holmes kicked a penalty in the 78th minute.
In the 79th minute, Ngatapa reserve Misi Akana — who had replaced Ngatapa’s loosehead prop and MVP Taylor Howatson in the 55th minute then switched sides with starting tighthead Jason Jones (Jones having moved to hooker in Kerr’s absence) — became the last man to be given a yellow card, with 60 seconds remaining.
“We made errors and were under pressure a lot of the time — OBM took advantage of that,” Ngatapa manager David McDonald said.
He (like Ngatapa captain and blindside flanker James Maher) felt that the home team started well in a scrum duel in which OBM took tightheads in each half.
OBM head coach Trevor Crosby stressed the importance of a strong showing in that phase of the game.
“I wanted our scrum to be dominant,” he said.
“The lineout was certainly better this week. Rikki (Terekia) hit his targets — such as Gabe (Te Kani) and Cookie (Jacob Cook) — but Ngatapa are disruptive and they’re a hard team to put away.
“We’re on the board now, but we’ve got a big game coming up, against High School Old Boys for the Peter Martin Cup at the Oval this Saturday.”
“It’s an enjoyable challenge, to run twice in one day.”
So said 19-year-old referee Ollie Holst who, like 26-year-old colleague Isaac Hughes, refereed two games in Week 1.
Holst refereed YMP v Earthwork Solutions High School Old Boys and Gisborne Boys’ High School second 15 v Lindisfarne College. Hughes refereed Ngatapa v OBM in the premier grade and Harvest Transport Ngatapa v Nuhaka in Senior 1.
“Ollie has a good head on him,” YMP coach Steve Smith said.
“He’s approachable and very professional.”
YMP beat HSOB 22-12 — three tries to one — at Barry Park.
Of the Challenge Cup game, Smith said: “It was tough up front and HSOB started well at scrum-time — their first try really came from that — but we made a huge defensive effort and also got quick go-forward ball, (No.8) Jesse Kapene and (openside flanker) Fawn White carried powerfully for us.”
Like the Ngatapa-OBM clash, the game at Barry Park was a rugby stoush, waged predominantly by big forward packs.
Blindside flanker Fletcher Scammell was the HSOB MVP for more than his work-rate, winning his ball and YMP ball at the line-out. Teammates and opponents alike acknowledged a match-effort of rare heart and passion.
HSOB manager Jonathan Poole said: “YMP brought the game to us — they were aggressive around the ruck. We played too much rugby in our own half.”
Run of play
HSOB co-captain Tamanui Hill opened the scoring in the fifth minute. Fullback Andrew Tauatevalu converted Hill’s try for 7-0.
YMP right wing Winiata Tarawa then scored the home team’s first try, 20 minutes into the game to close it to 7-5.
YMP first-five Reihana Wyllie kicked a penalty at the 30-minute mark to give his team an 8-7 lead at halftime.
YMP reserve Whaimotu Craft-Chemis came on at centre for the second half and scored a sensational try in the 43rd minute. His fellow reserve Pamona Samupo, having come on at second-five when MVP Te Peehi Skudder-Fairlie moved to the right wing, converted to make it 15-7 to YMP.
Skudder-Fairlie’s second-half move to the wing bore fruit in the 58th minute. He scored and Samupo converted to make it 22-7.
HSOB halfback-cum-right-wing George Halley scored the last try of the match to make it YMP 22 HSOB 12.
They give the ball plenty of air at Te Karaka Domain and they love a good tackle.
The defending champions of Poverty Bay premier grade rugby, GT Shearing Waikohu, outscored Kevin Hollis Glass Pirates-GMC by eight tries to three for a 50-19 victory.
Run of play
Waikohu fullback Ethine Reeves scored the opening try 10 minutes into the game. It was the first of two that he scored in Week 2.
Blindside flanker James Rutene, second-five-cum-first-five Kelvin Smith, centre and MVP Larry Fleming, right-wing-cum-second-five Caleb Lewis and reserve left wing Luka Peta were the other try-scorers.
Smith kicked four conversions. Waikohu, the home team, were also awarded a penalty try by referee Les Thomas, with the conversion an automatic award of two points.
Waikohu led 38-5 at halftime. Pirates-GMC scored tries through centre Paora Dewes, fullback-cum-first-five Whakarae Henare and reserve second-five Paora Mullany. Henare also kicked two conversions.
It was all clean hard stuff in excellent conditions in front of crowd of 500-plus.
Thomas controlled a physical contest admirably. He issued Waikohu first-five Thomas Rutene with a blue card (suspected concussion) early in the game and sin-binned both Waikohu loosehead prop Toru Noanoa and Smith in the second half.
Pirates-GMC No.8 Willy Bolingford won his team’s MVP award for a superb defensive effort, complimented by strong running with the ball in hand.
Pirates-GMC player-coach Willie Waitoa played for all 80 minutes, and was pleased that his team came close to achieving parity with the Lee Brothers Shield holders in a much-improved second-half effort.
Pirates-GMC backs coach Barnard Huriwai, said: “For our second game together, I thought we did well in patches on both attack and defence. Things don’t happen overnight so we’re just working on team cohesion and game structure. Fitness is very important also. We like what we see already, and know we’re improving.”
Jason Tuapawa, the Waikohu coach, said: “We started well, starving Pirates-GMC of ball in the first 10 minutes. While we’ve got things to work on, we played some good rugby.”
