Rugby
A last-minute penalty allowed East Coast to escape with an 18-18 draw with Pioneer in a thoroughly entertaining Wairarapa-Bush Tui Cup premier division rugby match at Whareama on Saturday.
It was a welcome change of fortunes for East Coast fullback Nick Olson who had been off target with several goal kicks, including seeing a penalty attempt just minutes earlier strike the uprights and rebound into play.
Even if he had been missed his last kick, however, Olson - a former national Heartland representative and a regular in Wairarapa-Bush teams in recent seasons - would still have emerged as one of his team's shining lights as he had scored two of his side's three tries, each of them in typically opportunistic fashion. Blocked for room, he kicked ahead and somehow managed to regain possession despite Pioneer appearing to have the situation well covered in both instances.
While the two sides were always prepared to move the ball wide whenever the opportunity presented it was the intensity of the forward exchanges which highlighted this particular match and neither side could claim to have attained any measure of superiority in the main ball-winning departments. East Coast did finish the stronger of the two but overall there would have been very little in it on the score of possession or territory.