League: Brawl mars big weekend of league

Portland Panthers player Josh Poasa gets stopped by Hikurangi Stags' Joe Rau and a teammate during their rugby league clash at the Blue Goose ground. Photo/John Stone

Rugby League Northland's groundbreaking anti-sideline abuse campaign got off to a rough start in Dargaville on Saturday when an on-field brawl drew in spectators and the game was called off.

The Multikai Premiership match between Hokianga Pioneers and Northern Wairoa was a hot-tempered affair throughout. Hokianga were leading 22-16 with about 20 minutes still to play when the fight broke out between the players. Northern Wairoa's Cruize Selkirk said the way the game ended did nothing for either team.

"It was no good for us because we were planning on finishing with a big comeback and we were hot on attack when the fight broke out."

He said the brawl quickly spread and wasn't pretty and he had no problems with the referee's decision to call the match off.

"It got pretty bad, there was about a minute's worth of fighting and a couple of spectators decided to join in which was an ugly look so the ref had no choice but to call it off really ... there was no excuse for what happened, it was a real shame," Selkirk said.

The brawl detracted from what was a great weekend of rugby league action in the Multikai Cooker Premiership and damaged the launch of the league's "Don't Be An Egg" anti-sideline abuse campaign last week. There is little doubt that the competition's disciplinary committee will take a dim view of the brawl but it is unclear until it meets, how the points will be apportioned for the match - if any are handed out at all to the fifth and sixth placed teams involved in the brawl.

The top-of-table clash between Takahiwai Warriors and Otangarei Knights ended in a 32-20 victory to the Warriors. Hikurangi Stags - who defeated the Warriors last weekend - had the chance to join Takahiwai at the top of the table with a victory over fourth-placed Portland but it was the Panthers that won the battle of attrition at Blue Goose.

Portland won the game 14-10 and coach Craig Bird was thrilled to record their second win over the Stags in a season - something he admitted was a rare feat for the club.

"The win was down to our defence, we've been concentrating on working around the ruck area for a couple of weeks and that was the focus of our game plan and it paid dividends for us against Hikurangi," he said.

Fats Kaka scored an important second half try from dummy half to open up a lead which looked to be enough to get the team the win until a resurgent Hikurangi came back right at the death. They scored a late try to pile the pressure on the visitors in the closing minutes of the game and Bird was thankful that his side stood up to it.

Mike Salasi and second rower Josh Poasa were the standouts for the coach with their high work rates and tackle counts during the match. The win leaves Takahiwai on top of the table with 16 points with Portland, Otangarei and Hikurangi two points behind.

"We want to carry on playing like that this weekend against Takahiwai because they're the benchmark, so we'll be training hard this week," Bird said.

The match between the old rivals will be the feature match of the next round. There were two other matches completed from the competition on Saturday with Moerewa Tigers winning the mid northern derby 32-22 over Kerikeri Makos while Hora Hora Broncos drew 26-all with Muriwhenua Kuaka.