Semifinal standings decided in Hawke's Bay premier rugby

Adam Akuhata scores Lindisfarne College's second try in a Central North Island schools competition match against St Peter's of Hamilton in Hastings. The visiting team won 22-12. Photo / Paul Taylor

Napier Old Boys Marist solved the only mystery about the make-up of next weekend's Maddison Trophy Hawke's Bay club rugby semifinals when they scored seven tries to beat Clive 41-24 at Clive's home ground, Farndon Park.

With the top four confirmed a week earlier, the last of the seven preliminary rounds stood only to sort out who would play who for places in the final at the end of a five-match big weekend of club rugby at McLean Park, Napier, on July 16-17.

In one semifinal, Old Boys Marist have an all-Napier match against first-round Nash Cup final winners Taradale, who went without a run for a second week in a row after Hastings side Tamatea defaulted their match, which was to have been played at Tareha Reserve.

Fullback Paora Manuel-Harman keeping alive Napier Pirate's hopes of promotion back to Premier rugby, in a 21-19 Senior 1 win over Taradale Reserve. Photo / Paul Taylor

In the other one, fourth-placed Clive will play defending champions Hastings Rugby and Sport, who secured the No 1 seeding and completed their qualifying campaign unbeaten with a 31-14 win over MAC on their home-ground Elwood Park in Hastings.

Waipukurau side Central's run of comebacks from well behind finally produced the winning goods, coming back from 29-7 down at halftime with a 31-29 away win over Napier Tech Old Boys at Whitmore Park, Napier, enabling Central to climb over MAC and Napier to claim sixth in the eight-team competition.

Havelock North and Napier Pirate, the two teams relegated in a competition reformatting after each failed to win a match in the Nash Cup round, kept their hopes alive of an early return to the top grade going by making the Senior Division 1 semifinals.

But they will be playing against each other. Havelock North, already the top qualifiers, completed an unbeaten run of big scores in the lower grade with a 67-17 win in Napier over Tech OB Reserves, who had started with a hope of snatching a playoff position, and Pirate secured the fourth qualifying berth with a 21-19 win over Taradale Reserves.

Division 1 first-round Country winners Aotea, the only other qualifiers eligible for promotion, beat Otane 48-13, to secure a home semifinal against Napier OBM Reserves, who beat Division 1 first-round town champions Maraenui 55-7.

HBRU club rugby manager Sean Davies confirmed that any club that reaches the Division 1 final and does not otherwise have a Premier side will be promoted, and if two of the three lose their semifinals the second promotion rights will go to the winners of the earlier round-robin match between the two sides.

The match at Clive, in which OBM led 19-14 at halftime, had an underlying hint of cricket about it, respective first five-eighths Bain Champion (OBM) and Tianua Poto (Clive) starting the race to 100 for the season, with 94 and 93 points respectively.

Poto won the race moments after play resumed following halftime with a penalty, his third success in a 4-from-4 record for the day, and Champion, who missed the chance with a conversion astray late in the first half, brought up his century almost immediately, scoring his side's fourth try and adding the conversion.

Meanwhile, Hastings Boys High School beat Rotorua BHS 24-17 in a crucial Super 8 match in Hastings, and competition defending champions Hamilton BHS beat Napier BHS 32-7 in Napier.

In the Central North Island Schools competition, both Hawke's Bay sides also had home matches in Hastings, with St John's College beating New Plymouth school Francis Douglas Memorial College 25-15, and Lindisfarne College being beaten 22-12 by St Peter's College, of Hamilton.