Aotea Senior Rugby wins both rounds and home advantage

The victorious Aotea Rugby team and supporters.

Aotea senior rugby finished top of the Hawke's Bay Senior Two grade on Saturday, August 22 at Rugby Park beating Waipukurau 41-28 in a game its fans were sadly unable to see due to Covid-19 restrictions.

It was vintage Aotea playing an expansive and fast-moving game combining rugged forward rushes and slick backline movements.

Tama Petera thrusts through the Waipukurau defence.

The match did not start well as Waipukurau, buoyed by their one-point loss earlier at home, had come to play.

It pinned Aotea in its own 22 for the first 20 minutes by which time Aotea had conceded 11 points – two penalties and a try but a piece of Petera magic soon put the team back on track with Tama and Waka pulling off a scissor move to score by the posts.

The home side's forwards were by then starting to fire and a forward drive resulted in a try out wide for Aotea to take the lead at 14-11 and a kick deep resulted in another try to have Aotea lead at halftime 19-11.

Any notions Waipukurau might have had about starting the second half strongly were quickly dispelled when Aotea scored from the kickoff in a well-rehearsed move taking the lead to 24 -11.

Waipukurau replied with a try from its winger when spun wide but Aotea retaliated with a try to halfback Te Turanga Reweti after a scrum drive.

At 29-18 Aotea relaxed somewhat and was twice caught napping out wide Waipukurau getting to within striking range at 29-28 with 10 minutes to play.

Another piece of individual magic came when half-back Reweti chipped over the scrum for a flying Zamaya Lilo to catch and sprint 50m to score.

Still within a converted try to win, Waipukurau attacked but a huge bust in mid-field by Bailey Johnson saw the ball pass through five hands for Aotea to score and convert at 41-28.

Having won both rounds Aotea had a home advantage for the semifinal on August 29.