Rugby: Heart gets Hora Hora well-earned victory

Controversy surrounded Hora Hora's 15-13 win against Wellsford when touch judges called a Wellsford conversion over only for the ref to disallow it, and minutes later when a Wellsford penalty shot was disallowed by touch judges as the referee was about to signal it over.

While neither shot counted, Wellsford were probably lucky as early in the game a high shot on Hora Hora's Dougie Te Puni - with one defender to beat - by Matt Wright resulted in just a penalty and a yellow card.

Coach Doug Te Puni was relieved after a whirlwind weekend and that he had players out of position yesterday.

Te Puni said there were a few nervous moments when Wellsford were camped down in Hora Hora's 22. But, he felt his side's big heart shone out.

"You've got to believe in your systems, we were parked down here for a while and it showed the Hora Hora heart where no one wanted to give up.

"Player-for-player we probably don't look very good but heart-for-heart it's different, and that's what we do."

While Te Puni was not prepared to comment on the confusion between referee, touch judges, teams and supporters, Wellsford coach Mick Sweetman felt a little hard done by.

Sweetman, however, did concede it was just one of those things that required everyone to move on and look to the future.

"Hora Hora played a very physical game which we struggled with at times and the conditions being the first wettish slippery day I think we didn't adapt enough to the conditions.

"We're not playing badly. It's just these sorts of games we need to nail. I think our focus is just to forget about it, we'll talk about we could have changed things during the game but we just need to focus on the future.

"One loss like this shouldn't make us panic, we need to stick to the game plan which has got us this far."

Hora Hora are back on top of the table after temporarily being dethroned by Wellsford after they lost on Saturday 15-13 to Mid Western.