RUGBY - Hora Hora take revenge as favourite sons come home

Hora Hora welcomed back two of their favourite sons, with Troy Woodman and Warren Dunn playing instrumental parts in their dramatic 15-8 win over competition leaders Wellsford.
Woodman, who returned to Whangarei this week after four months in Italy, provided a burst of speed to beat two tackles and score in the corner, levelling the score at 8-all midway through the second spell in Saturday's tight match.
The try was a turning point in the match and from that moment Hora Hora looked the most likely to break the deadlock - eventually accomplished with just five minutes remaining, when Aaron Baigent fielded a miracle offload from Rob Murray and crossed the line through the gaping hole the second five-eighth had just created in the Wellsford defence.
Warren Dunn's presence in the team - for the first time since he broke his collarbone at the beginning of the season - proved to be just as important as Woodman's contribution, as he neutralised the threat from Wellsford's danger man Rene Ranger.
The faithful crowd at Hora Hora Park were elated - and why not? The visitors' set-piece was far superior, particularly in the scrums, which saw them dominate the first spell and lead 8-0 at the break with their only try coming off a tighthead, scored by Brad Lewis after quick-thinking by halfback Ross Neal.
More importantly, Hora Hora had overturned a 60-0 thrashing at Wellsford in the first round. Their halfback and assistant coach, Karl Milne, said the match had huge significance for the team's season.
"We've targeted turning around the three games we lost in the first round and that didn't start too well with a loss at Mid Northern last week, so that really put the pressure on the boys this week," he said.
The team concentrated on defence during the week and it paid off with a desperate Hora Hora defence turning back what may have been a Wellsford tide in the first half.
"It showed today all right, we marked up well on Rene [Ranger], which is something we didn't do when we played them the first time, so all in all we were pretty happy with how the game went," said Milne. "Troy Woodman made a difference on the wing coming back ... he got back on Thursday morning, after 32 hours on the plane and he was at training on Thursday night - we didn't even ask him, that's Hora Hora through and through."
Milne said the foundation had been laid to reach the playoffs but the side now has to to carry it on.
Wellsford felt a little hard done by after the loss and with some reason. A try to Brad Lewis - that might have been a gamebreaker - was contentiously disallowed at the beginning of the second spell and a few minutes later Jamal Brogan was ruled offside after he intercepted a pass and was in the clear to score.
Mid Western also avenged a first round defeat in their match at Hikurangi.
The two teams were level 5-all at the break but it was the visitors, guided by mercurial first five-eighth Lachie Munro, who took the game by the scruff of the neck in the second half.
Munro grabbed two tries, with Dane Rawiri and Regan Edwards also scoring to secure a valuable bonus-point 32-5 win.
Mid Northern moved back to the top of the Southern Districts Premier table with a solid if unspectacular 13-5 win over Marist. Captain Nick Lake turned up on the wing to score an early try followed by another to winger Troy Lobendarn, with David Howell adding a penalty.
There was no love lost between the two sides in the rugged encounter and referee Brendan Hamer was forced to hand out three yellow cards.
Again Old Boys went close to recording their first win of the season but were beaten 22-15 by Kamo.
The Western Sharks kept Waipu scoreless at Dargaville and plundered five points from the game, with centre Tama Herman grabbing a hat-trick of tries, Solomon Palu a double and Matt McCully and Luke Hamilton also touching down.