St Pat’s Silverstream beat Wellington College in Traditional

• By Adam Julian, Steven White & Scott MacLean
• Photos by Andy McArthur

On a field that resembled fragments of lumpy mince, St Patrick’s College, Silverstream retained the Ken Gray Memorial Trophy with a 32-19 win over Wellington College this afternoon.

Their 92nd annual Traditional fixture doubled as a fifth round Premiership First XV competition game, and Silverstream extended their run to five straight bonus point wins. The visitors’ victory was secured in the first half when they established a 15-0 lead on the back of an overwhelming weight of territory and possession.

Silverstream looked most effective when employing their big, athletic forwards to attack Wellington up the middle of the ruck or turning around the speedy Wellington wings with precise grubber kicking. Following an early penalty to fullback Thompson Tukupa, blindside flanker Drew Berg-Mclean burrowed over from close range when the resolute home defence finally wilted.

When Silverstream lost captain and first-five Maui Winitana-Patelesio midway through the first half they lost direction with their kicking game and backline accuracy. Still, they managed to expand their advantage when lively centre David Tokalautawa powered past a few defenders in a lightning burst to make it 15-0.

Wellington College was living off scraps in the heavy underfoot conditions, but wing Jacob Kennedy was doing his best Jeff Wilson impersonation with a series of thrilling chip-and-chase injections. He looked to have scored chasing a kick through but adjudged to have run out of tape in the in-goal.

The Wellington College scrum was holding firm, and just before halftime space was created on the short side by No. 8 and captain Jack Riley for left wing Sam Braddock to cross his fourth try of the season. The conversion to first-five Archie Sims made it 15-7 at the interval.

Silverstream cradled in tight and muscled over to make it 20-7 shortly after halftime before Wellington enjoyed their best period of the match. Expansive attacking and a flurry of Silverstream penalties changed the momentum and when a converted try was scored in the far corner in the 50th minute things could have got interesting at 20-14.

Sims then missed an ambitious long-range penalty that would have got them within three points.

Sims, not for the first time, had a sluggish clearance charged down which allowed Silverstrsteam to regain control. The assured Tukupa scored from a cross-kick and it became 25-14.

Jackson Mendoza was industrious and abrasive. Another charge down and nimble handing enabled the Silverstream flanker to charge 30 metres clear.

To their credit, Wellington never surrendered and had the last say in a pile-over of mud.

White their scum was praiseworthy the lineout malfunctioned often, their kicking game lacked authority and they fell off a few too many tackles. Flynn Taylor, Israel Time and Joe McGunniess were the pick of an honest tight five, and captain, and No.8 Jack Riley was a welcome return. Kennedy was a joy to watch in the backs.

Silverstream forwards Drew Berg-McLean and Alex Hewitt were commanding and

Heath Tuifao added real impact from the bench.

Daniel Mangin was the referee

Head-to-head, Silverstream have now won this traditional 52 times, Wellington College 33 and there have been seven draws.

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HVHS and Tawa College draw 

Hutt Valley High School and Tawa College drew 27-27 in their Co-ed Cup semi-final in Lower Hutt This afternoon.

Tawa won the game five tries to four, so progress to the Co-ed Cup final against Mana College. This will be on the line when they also meet for the Beard Trophy in a fortnight.

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St Bernard’s College beat Hato Paora

There was one other Traditional fixture, as Maori boys school Hato Paora again made the trek south from Feilding, this time for their meeting with St Bernard’s at the NZCIS campus though like their other trips this year they met with defeat.

Hato started strongly and had much of the run of play in the opening quarter and were unlucky not to score on a couple of occasions. But Bernard’s turned that around and were able to score three times before the break from that point.

Any hopes Hato had of being able to reduce the deficit were quickly snuffed out after the break when Bernard’s ran in two tries in the first ten minutes, but could only add two more as Hato maintained a stiff resolve. And it was the visitors who had the final say, scoring to end matters after Bernard’s lost a player to a red card to leave the result at 39-5.

St Bernard’s attention now turns to Saturday’s Premiership encounter with Rongotai, where they’ll need to be better than they were today in parts, particularly some of their decision making and structure.

The two schools Under 15 sides also faced off, with Bernard’s winning that contest by 55-7.

Round 5 First XV draw below and HERE