Pioneers take sound East Coast thumping

Last year's beaten finalists East Coast provided the main talking point of second-round matches in the Wairarapa-Bush premier division rugby competition on Saturday, running in a massive 15 tries in bringing up their century of points against Pioneer at the Colombo Rd grounds in Masterton.
East Coast won by 105-10 against a young and depleted Pioneer squad which was outgunned in every department.
For Wairarapa-Bush fullback Nick Olson it was a scoring bonanza. He scored a try and kicked 12 conversions and two penalties for 35 points.
Speedy winger Luke Shanks was a constant menace to a shaky Pioneer defence and ran in four tries while other try scorers for the visitors were Sam Mitchell (2), Richie Cameron (3), Jamie Greig, Ben Pereira (2) and Jesse McGilvary.
Pioneer, which has had regular premier division players transfer to other clubs this season, did at least salvage something out of the wreckage by scoring two tries of their own through Ihe Namana and Henry Te Whare.
East Coast coach, former All Black Mark Donaldson, was quick to pay tribute to the spirit shown by the Pioneer players despite their hammering on the scoreboard.
''Yes, we did win easily but they made us work harder in the forwards than what the score shows, and they stuck to their guns right to the end,'' Donaldson said.
The pace and flair of their outside backs served Marist well in their somewhat flattering 29-19 victory over Eketahuna at Memorial Park.
Eketahuna actually had the better of the forward battle for much of the game and after trailing by 14-6 at halftime got their noses in front 16-14 in the second spell only for Marist to hit back with a couple of late tries to seal the win.
Marist scored four tries in all and three of them could be attributed to the attacking brilliance of young backs like Shane Lewis, Daniel Blong and Taafa who often stretched the Eketahuna defences with cheeky and innovative attacking play. Lewis, at fullback, was especially dangerous whenever he was given the chance to stretch his legs and his two tries were just reward for an excellent display.
Unfortunately for Eketahuna their backs, while always sound, didn't have nearly the same scoring potential as their Marist counterparts and therefore the steady supply of quality possession won for them by a rugged set of forwards produced just the one try. Instead they relied on the accurate goal kicking of first-five and captain Cribb.
Prominent for Eketahuna up front were the lively loose trio of Luke Mahoney, Pete Tua-Davidson and Rupeni Tamani who were quick to the breakdowns and constructive once they got there, prop Jesse Williams, who fair bristled aggression in everything he did, and lock Brandon Young who matched some tidy lineout work with impressive mobility in broken play. Toiling away well for Marist in the forward exchanges were No 8 Ben Couch and locks Corey Reid and James Goodger.
Shane Lewis (2), Corey Reid and Taafa scored tries for Marist, with James Goodger kicking one penalty and one conversion and Nathan Couch kicking two conversions. Eketahuna's try was scored by Matatini and Cribb kicked four penalties and a conversion.
Greytown bounced back from their first round loss in resounding style with a comprehensive 51-5 thumping of Puketoi. Scoring eight tries in all Greytown were always looking to get their backs into the game and they
generally made the most of their opportunities. Tavita Isaac scored three of the Greytown tries with others going to Brett Aitken, T Rimene, Joseph Sio, Tapanga Isaac and Kingi Kaiwai. Kaiwai also kicked three conversions and a penalty and Tavita Issac kicked one conversion. Evan Small scored the sole Puketoi try.
Defending champions Masterton Red Star made it two from two with a comfortable enough 27-5 win over Gladstone at Gladstone. Lively halfback Sam Parker scored two of the Masterton Red Star tries with pacy winger Joe Dalhberg-Paku also dotting down. Greg Paku kicked a penalty and Byron Karaitiana kicked three conversions and a dropped goal. Richard Puddy was the Gladstone try scorer.
Carterton and Martinborough were always likely to have a close, tense battle and so it proved with Carterton running out 24-18 winners. Lachie McFadsen and Brock Price scored tries for Carterton with Jono Hurley landing two penalties and Reece Lett two penalties and one conversion. Daniel George and Jaco Pieterse scored the Martinborough tries and Tommy Te Kani kicked two penalties and one conversion.