Greytown win ugly

A 20-MINUTE scoring blitz sealed an ugly 23-16 victory for a depleted Greytown/Tuhirangi side in a Senior A rugby encounter against Masterton Red Star at Memorial Park on Saturday.
The small crowd of supporters that found enough pocket change to pay the gate fare could rightly feel aggrieved with their investment after both sides turned in, on a whole, forgettable performances.
In the end discipline proved the difference with Greytown's ever-reliable Kingi Kaiwai slotting 18 points off the boot thanks to Red Star's incessant offending.
The opening stanza was a particular bore with the only real excitement offered by Red Star's speedy No.8 Brock Price who snaffled a beautifully timed intercept and raced 80 metres to dot down untouched after only 10 minutes.
The remainder of the half then descended into an abyss of wasted opportunities, as neither side showed a willingness to build up momentum but rather insisted on flinging the pill around in blind hope and, unsurprisingly, merely succeeded in turning possession over.
Down 11-3 at halftime, the Greytown coaching staff must have pulled Tony Robbins from a hat for a motivational lecture such was the improvement in their side's intensity after the break.
The visitors piled on 20 points, including one try to burrowing halfback Fraser King, in as many minutes and should have scored more but for Red Star's repeated negative tactics at the breakdown, which resulted in five kickable penalties.
On numerous occasions Greytown busted downfield and looked certain to score only for the home side to deliberately kill the ball in an effort to limit the damage.
And the tactic proved beneficial with the referee keeping his hands clear of his pockets, offering only feeble cautions that kept Red Star captain Chris Senior smiling.
At 23-11 the game looked set to teeter to a tame finish but Senior kept the home town hopes alive when he took a gaping hole and sprinted 30 metres before turning the ball inside for Mike Henson to stroll over with five minutes left on the clock.
The try at least kept the final moments interesting but in the end the Greytown forwards stole a tight-head on the final scrum to end the contest.
Victorious coach Gavin Hill effectively summed up the match as "plain ugly" but was happy to walk away with the points given he was missing seven front-line players to injury, illness or work commitments.
"Sometimes you've just got to win ugly and so we will take it," he said.
"In the end it was an average game but I'm pretty happy with the guys that had to step up today, they did the job."
Young Greytown fullback Jamie Boyle was one such player to put up his hand, providing plenty of spark with some pulsating runs.
He, alongside Kaiwai, who showed exceptional vision and handling in the midfield, were at the centre of their side's attacking forays, while in the forwards big No.8 Nathan Iro and hard-working hooker Carl Peterson earned their showers with some monstrous defence.
Red Star's dressing room was understandably subdued after the match, though coach Barry Southey was able to see the positive side of defeat.
"We made a big step up from last week we just lacked the discipline," he said.
"I was pretty proud of our fellas, we've shown we've got promise and it was a good team effort to keep them out like we did really.
"In the second half we couldn't get our hands on the pill and when we did we turned it over, but we showed we can be dangerous when we get it right."
Result:
Greytown/Tuhirangi 23 (Fraser King try, Kingi Kaiwai 6 pen) v Red Star 16 (Brock Price, Mike Henson tries, Price 2 pen).