"It was a good game for us. We were struggling for numbers again," he said, reciting a common-enough complaint for bottom four teams in both Mangonui and Bay club rugby competitions.
"Eastern thought it was going to be easier than it was a little bit I think. Everyone wrote us off as they have been doing. The one thing that got us was fitness in the end, [otherwise] we were really competitive. Their fitness showed out in the last 20 minutes but at least we can see what we need to do - that players have to get to training."
Aupouri tries by Still, Kevin Jobe and Joe Oneroa, while standouts were young openside Justin Murray in the forwards, and (once again), No.8 Aaron Munroe.
Motukohu 17 Te Rarawa 37 (ht 12-14): The battle of the two west coast clubs was not quite as fierce a contest as anticipated at Kohukohu with Motukohu only able to field a skeleton team thus allowing Te Rarawa to run out clear winners when full time sounded on a crisp, picture perfect day in the North Hokianga.
Weathering the initial storm by the visitors, Motukohu - with only 16 players reportedly - scored first, against the run of play, and also last in the first half to go in to the break trailing by a narrow deficit, noted Motukohu's John Guest. "Rarawa had us under pressure for the first quarter of an hour. Second half our boys, probably a bit of fitness," said Guest, noting a couple of late tries saw Te Rarawa finish the better team.
Of the turnout, Guest said being unable to put the same team out on the paddock at any time this season was proving the main obstacle to producing cohesive performances. As was the large, remote and widespread catchment area from where the side drew its players, and which affected the ability to hold a decent training run on Thursdays under lights at Kohukohu. Tries by Stan Dunn 2 and Jesse Wallace with Sam Wallace converting one.
Te Rarawa coach Rikki Horlock - who injected himself into proceedings at first five late in the day - described this as an error-strewn affair noting either side could, at least, use the mistakes as part of their respective learning curves.
"Motukohu played well particularly in the first half.
Their forwards were strong and did a good job of disrupting our ball at set pieces. It was a stop-start affair there were a lot of errors and the game was basically lacking in flow. In saying that, the experience has highlighted specific areas which we need to improve in.
Te Rarawa tries by Dylan Phillips, Ilai Arona and Sean Covich, with Eli Morrogh kicking 4 conversions and 3 penalties; while standouts were Yates Gordon (best forward) and Shane Tuhiwai (best back).
Natives 53 Kaitaia 35: Natives celebrating their first win in Mangonui club rugby on home turf at Taheke on Saturday, a high scoring affair against a town side which has been struggling of late, the collaboration with the defunct Ngati Kuri outfit not working out quite as well as hoped for.
Despite the result, South Hokianga remain at the bottom of the ladder, equal on points with Aupouri but with a poorer for/against differential.
STANDINGS (estimated): Awanui (played 4, 309/25) 20 points, Eastern (4, 243/33) 20, Te Rarawa (5, 146/109) 15, Motukohu (4, 83/ 176) 7; bottom three: Kaitaia (4, 79/255) 6, Aupouri (4, 76/161) 5, Natives (5, 80/259) 5.
The NRU advised it was suffering a glitch which prevented the automatic updating of the Mangonui standings on the website but this problem was being addressed.
