Pioneer made to battle

Pioneer made hard work of their 5-3 win over East Coast in their Wairarapa-Bush premier division rugby match, played before a good-sized crowd at the Park Sportsground in Masterton on Saturday.
The home side scored a try early in the game, but were thwarted from adding to that tally by a combination of basic handling and passing errors, and a doughty East Coast defence.
Not helping the Pioneer cause either was questionable decision making, with at least three shots at goal from a comfortable range being turned down in favour of kicking for touch and looking to score a try. Each time they failed to do so, therefore keeping East Coast in the game right until the final whistle.
The first half was evenly contested both in terms of territory and possession, with Pioneer having the better of the opening 20 minutes and East Coast threatening to take control in the second quarter.
The second spell was almost all Pioneer from a territorial viewpoint, and they camped in the East Coast 22 for long periods, but all too often attacking movements came to an end through sloppy passing and poor handling.Indeed right on fulltime a try seemed certain to come when an overlap was created, but the vital pass went behind the unmarked player
Up front Pioneer had a scrum which often had the Coasters on the back pedal, and there was some scintillating running in broken play situations from hooker Henare and No.8 Nathan Rolls, both of whom took a power of stopping when at full steam.
Old hands Dave Ewe and Anton Kainuku put their experience to good value as well, especially in the rucks and mauls.
The Pioneer backs relied mostly on hard running second-five Tommy Harmon for their penetration, but while he was a willing workhorse he found it difficult to prise open a gritty East Coast defence.
East Coast had only a penalty from Byron Karaitiana to show for their efforts and, like Pioneer, turned over too much ball through basic mistakes to feel satisfied with their overall performance.
They must have fancied their chances of success at halftime, but the zip they had shown in the last 20 minutes of the first spell was sadly lacking right through the second.
The loose trio of Joe Wyeth, Glen Hanson and Ken Scott served the Coasters well on defence with Wyeth, especially, impressing with his high workrate in that area of the game.
The inside combination of Luke McKenna and Greg Paku were the pick of the backs.
Gladstone coach Steve Thompson was the first to concede his team might have been somewhat lucky to come away with a 10-10 draw from their premier division match with Marist at Memorial Park
Gladstone scored a late try to even things up at a time when Marist was down to 13 players after having two sent to the sin bin.
"Quite honestly we were bit fortunate to come away with anything," Thompson said. "They (Marist) took it to us in the forwards and certainly got more quality possession than we did. We'll take the points though and go away and think about it."
Try scorers for Gladstone were Ngatai Walker and Duncan Rutherford with Walker and hooker Ross Batty both having strong games.
Seasoned campaigners Lee Paku and Matthew Rowlands, who was forced to leave the field with a leg injury, anchored what was a solid Marist scrum and Paddy Rimene was his usual steady self at first-five.
Rimene kicked a penalty for Marist and Jeremy Calkin scored a try.
Defending champions Eketahuna maintained their unbeaten record when they played Martinborough at Martinborough,but once again they found victory harder to come by than most pundits predicted, winning by just 13-3. Bond and Walkler scored their tries and McKenzie kicked a penalty.Renata kicked a penalty for a brave Martinborough side.
The battle of the cellar dwellers, Masterton Red Star and Puketoi, was played at Pongaroa and it was Stars who broke their "duck" for the season, winning by 10-0.