Wins for Wellington Samoans, Centurions and U19s in home representative matches

It was club mate against mate today in the Wellington Samoans – Wellington Māori match at William Jones Park. Joe Faleafaga offloads in the tackle of Luke Kapene. Faleafaga would score a hat-trick and Kapene one try in the Samoans’ 46-8 win. 

There were convincing wins today for two representative teams and a comeback and rollicking victory for a third.

The Wellington Samoans beat Te Upoko o te Ika Wellington Māori 46-8 (extended report below) and the U19s defeated the Wellington Fijians 57-19, but the Wellington Centurions came back to beat the Manawatu Evergreens 40-38.

In their return match at Rugby League Park this afternoon, the Manawatu Evergreens flew to a 21-0 lead in the first half. The Centurions rallied and pulled the deficit back to 19-21 by halftime. The Centurions then went on a scoring spree to pull ahead 40-21 with 20 minutes to go. They empitied their bench and also both loose forward Toby Crosby and lock Ruperake Oloapu were yellow carded and the Evergreens came back to score three tries in the last 10 minutes and miss and wide-angled conversion on fulltime to draw.

For the Centurions, Ty Poe (2), Callum Harkin, Zane Ainslie, Louis Northcott and Crosby were try-scorers, while Sam Clarke kicked five conversions.

At Porirua Park #2 the Wellington U19s out-scored the Wellington Fijians nine tries to three in soft underfoot but dry overhead conditions, with eight players scoring their tries. The U19s led 19-5 at the turnaround.

Stanley Solomon (2), Ben Kershaw, Xavier Tavai, Daniel Tafili, Tofuka Paongo, Tyrone Maraku, Samonoa Euta and Leon Tuilama crossed the whitewash, while Carlos Hihi (4) and Solomon (2) kicked the conversions.

The Wellington Lions defended the Ranfurly Shield today at the Hutt Rec with a 39-17 win over the Southland Stags.

In club rugby, the Old Boys University Scallywags beat the Tawa Ducks 34-19 in their third round U85kg National Knockout Cup fixture at Nairnville Park. This was a replay of last week’s Wellington championship final.

The college rugby season drew to a close today with four finals.

Wellington College won the Division 1 U15 Father Gus Hill Cup with a 36-0 win over St Pat’s Town, Tawa College beat Scots College to win the Division 2 U15 Ross Findlay Cup and the second St Pat’s Tonw team beat Mana College 45-12 to win U15 Division 3.

The combined Onslow/Newlands Colleges teams defeated Wainuiomata High School 29-14 in the U65 Division 3 final.

Scots College beat Feilding High School 43-35 in their Hurricanes First XV semi-final at the Polo Ground.

Scots College will meet Palmerston North Boys’ High School in next week’s Hurricanes final, after PNBHS beat Napier Boys’ High School 19-10 this afternoon.

The Wellington Samoans finished their initial three-match 2023 representative campaign with a convincing 46-8 win over Te Upoko o te Ika Wellington Māori at William Jones Park this afternoon.

The Samoans outscored the Māori eight tries to one after leading 26-3 at half time.

The Samoans combined power up front with flair in the backs. Right wing Joe Faleafaga scored a hat-trick of tries.

The Māori won the toss and played into a moderate wind in dry conditions in the first half. They initially competed well, endeavouring to keep play tight around the fringes and stifling the Samoans’ of their freewheeling style.

The Samoans made several handling and discipline errors early on but still broke through to score their first try courtesy of captain and No 8 Lise Soloa who made a bust up the righthand touch line and passed inside to right wing Faleafaga.

The Māori got a roll-on and first five Rory Wollett kicked a penalty to close the deficit to 5-3.

The Samoans made a turnover in midfield 60 metres out, second five Skivi Va’a finding open space and sending rampaging openside flanker Alex Fidow charging to the line to score their second try.

Fidow was in the action again for their third try, a 90-metre break from a lineout. Fidow regathered a kick-and-chase and passed to Ories teammate and lock Samson Alaimoana who scored under the posts to make it 19-3.

The Māori then enjoyed their best period of the match on attack, but also lost flanker Sergio Hollis to the sin-bin, and they couldn’t break through to score, a pattern which would continue throughout much of the second half as well.

Right on halftime, the Samoans scored their fourth try from another turnover and a persistent build-up with ball in hand, finished off by a bulldozing run to the line by tighthead prop Christian Semu.

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The wind died down and the skies darkened during the break, but the rain would hold off until the final 15 minutes of the match.

After a competitive first 10 minutes of the half, the Samoans scored an outstanding team try to go up 31-3 and effectively seal their win. The lead-up to the try involved a 20 metre rolling maul up towards the try line in the corner, soon followed by a well weighted stab kick into the opposite corner by first five Grayson Whitman for right wing Faleafaga to run on to and score his second try.

The Samoans would score two more tries before the Māori scored their only try of the game. The first was scored by skipper Soloa off the back of an attacking scrum under the posts. Not long after, Māori lock Hemi Fermanis was sinbinned for holding up a likely try. Faleafaga then scored his third try to put the Samoans up 41-3 after another length of the field sweeping movement that was bundled into touch on the far side. But the Māori couldn’t hold them out much longer and Faleafaga scored in front of the clubrooms on the other side of the field.

With the rain now starting to fall, the Māori finally began making inroads through the defence and second half replacement fullback Luke Kapene sliced through and scored just inside the righthand corner flag.

The Samoans had the final say of the day, scoring another spectacular breakout try from a defensive scrum in front of their own line, and counter-attacking up the embankment touchline for replacement openside flanker Christian Fa’avae to score. This was the final act of the game with referee Harris blowing fulltime.

The Samoans have one last match to come when host an Auckland Barbarians Samoans side on 23 September, the Māori must regroup quickly for their next two games against their Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury counterparts in the coming fortnight.