Quarter-final venues almost all decided

Venues for three of next weekend's quarter-finals were clear at the end of preliminary round matches in the Wairarapa-Bush senior first division rugby championship on Saturday.
Top seeds Gladstone will host eighth seeds Eketahuna at Gladstone, second seeds Carterton will be at home to seventh seeds Martinborough and third seeds Pioneer will meet sixth seeds East Coast at the Park Sportsground in Masterton.
Just where the other quarter-final between Greytown and Marist will be played was still to be confirmed when these notes were penned.
They met each other on Saturday and Greytown's 8-3 win left them level on 17pts and it seems they can't be separated on points differential either, unofficial figures having them both on plus 11 there.
As it happened Pioneer and East Coast also finished with 17 competition points with Pioneer's points differential of plus 36 placing them third behind Gladstone (24pts) and Carterton (20pts) and East Coast's plus nine dropping them to sixth and out of the reckoning for a home quarter-final.
Martinborough with 12pts finished as seventh qualifiers for the quarters with the last spot coming down to a battle royal between Eketahuna and Puketoi neither of whom managed to win a match and neither of whom had the benefit of the bye, which was worth the maximum four points. So their fate came down to bonus points with Eketahuna earning four of them, one more than Puketoi.
Loose forwards Nathan Rolls and Mike Wilson were in superb form as Pioneer ran in five tries to three in beating Eketahuna 39-17 at the Park Sportsground on Saturday.
Needing the win to guarantee them a quarter-final spot Eketahuna started strongly and a fired-up pack ensured they had the dominance in both territory and possession for the first 10 minutes of play.
Unfortunately for them, however, Eketahuna was unable to turn that dominance into points on the board with Pioneer weathering the storm and then hitting back with a penalty and a converted try to take a lead which would never be threatened.
In fact Pioneer put 34 unanswered points on the board before Eketahuna came back with a late rally with saw them register three tries, one of them a penalty try, to at least give some respectability to their scoreline.
Rolls and Wilson relished the ample amount of broken play situations which featured throughout the game, twice linking in spectacular try scoring movements and often surging 20 metres or more with ball in hand. They also got through a power of work on cover defence and Rolls had a third string to his bow, being his team's main supplier of lineout possession.
Their youthful inside back combination of Trevelli Rimene and Hoani Peacock served Pioneer well, Peacock making a number of jinking runs which had the Eketahuna defence at sixes and sevens. Lee Ewe was always robust in midfield and Joe Papaali was safe at fullback.
As it happened Eketahuna's loss did not deny them a quarter-final berth and they will have taken confidence from the success achieved by their forwards when they decided to keep it tight, all three of their tries resulting from rolling mauls.
Flanker Sully Alsop had a fine game for them, not only doing a mountain of work on defence but also impressing at lineout time. Prop Brendan Walker was a diligent worker in the tighter exchanges and No.8 Steve Olds seldom failed to make good ground with his barging runs.
Carterton coach Steve Hurley was actually feeling sorry for Puketoi after his team had beaten them 17-10 in their match at Carterton. The defeat left Puketoi languishing at the bottom of the points table and effectively ended their season but Hurley was the first to concede Carterton were a trifle fortunate to come out on top.
"I think you can say Puketoi were unlucky not to get a better result & they had as much of the game as we did and there wouldn't have been any excuses had we lost," Hurley said.
Twice during the course of the match Puketoi, which scored two good tries, had their noses in front and with Jared Bambry leading the way up front and Joe Hull calling the shots at halfback they competed well in every department against a Carterton side which lacked their usual vigour and intensity. Old hands Joe Harwood and Tomasi Kedrabuka were the pick of their forwards and midfielder Jason Scott likewise in the backs.
Rain which fell throughout the game made life difficult for Greytown and Marist in their encounter at Greytown with a lone try in the second half giving Greytown an upset 8-3 victory after the scores were level at 3-3 at halftime. The Greytown forwards had a slight edge on their Marist counterparts in the ball winning areas with Norm Henricksen and Brett Aitken prominent in the lineouts and Johnny Avatea running strongly from No.8. The home team also benefited immensely from the tactical nous of first-five Lawrence Matthews whose focus was on keeping his pack on the front foot.
Marist were their own worst enemies at times with a few prime scoring chances going begging because of passes either not being made or going to ground.
A solid second half performance was the catalyst to Gladstone's 21-8 win over Martinborough at Martinborough with the attacking qualities of the Gladstone backs being the deciding factor. Jordan Watene was a constant threat at centre for Gladstone and was rewarded with two tries and Kingi Kawai impressed with his option taking at first-five. Mike Spence was the pick of a Gladstone pack which struggled to any form of dominance over a gutsy Martinborough eight spearheaded by Matt O'Neale and Peter Ireland.
The Eketahuna women's team have been forced to wait another week to see if they can claim the Manawatu premier division title.
Their grand final with Linton Army was to be played at Palmerston North on Saturday but was postponed until next weekend because of weather and ground conditions.