Hawke’s Bay and Poverty Bay win Hurricanes U16 tournament A and B Divisions

Members of the winning Hawke’s Black team after their narrow Division A final win over Manawatu.

By Steven White

Hawke’s Bay Black (Division A) and Poverty Bay (Division B) are the 2024 Hurricanes Youth Council’s U16 champions.

Hawke’s Bay Black won the Division A final at Levin’s Playford Park with a hard-fought 13-8 victory over Manawatu.

Poverty Bay defeated the Hawke’s Bay Development team 36-19 in the Division B decider.

In other matches today, Wellington Black beat Wellington Gold 29-10 in the Division A 3 v 4 playoff, Wairarapa-Bush defeated Whanganui 59-5 in the Division B 3 v 4 game 39-31 for 5^th and 6^th in Division B.

For East Coast, this was their final game at this tournament, as they join the Chiefs region next year.

They say defence wins finals.

For Hawke’s Bay Black, defence won today’s final, as well as their two encounters with the Wellington teams on Monday and Tuesday.

On Monday, they rarely missed a tackle in the first half and then capitalised in the second by beating winless Wellington Gold 50-14 and on Tuesday they held on over the final five minutes of relentless attack to draw with Wellington Black 31-31.

Against Manawatu today, they were trailing the Junior Turbos 8-5 some 20 minutes into the second half, when they broke out and scored this try here through blindside flanker Charlie East (wearing the #5 jersey):

Manawatu came back, but three consecutive lineout misses in the far corner, a missed penalty and then a dropped ball out wide with the line beckoning meant it wasn’t to be Manawatu’s day.

First five Will Lovatt then kicked a 48-metre penalty into the light wind with a few minutes to play to give them their 13-8 win.

Earlier, Manawatu made a bright and breezy start, missing at least two clear chances to score tries in the opening 10 minutes, before fullback Mania Rudolph opened the scoring in the final with a penalty.

Hawke’s Bay rallied, and with their best chance of the match so far went close to scoring in the far corner, held up over the line.

In the 25^th minute, Manawatu broke out and earned a penalty and lineout inside the 22, from which tighthead prop Tevita Fakava showed good strength to barrel to the tryline:

Manawatu were up 8-0 at this point, and were getting good value out of tight forwards such as Fakava, captain and hooker Lucas Goodman and No. 8 Viliami Rongokea-Tupou, while their backs were full of running with first five Tuharakia Wallace-McLeod quick on the counterattack.

A few minutes before halftime, Hawke’s Bay won a turnover in attacking territory not long after the next re-start. This led to a concerted period of phase play in front of Manawatu’s line and finally No. 8 Carter Pirie scored for them. The conversion hit the uprights and Manawatu led 8-5, the halftime score.

The run of play remained tight throughout much of the second half, until Hawke’s Bay’s decisive try that saw them take the lead.

Hawke’s Bay’s work at the breakdowns and in shutting down Manawatu’s backline were keys to their victory. No. 8 Pirire put in a Player of the Match performance with a high workrate, while openside flanker Oliver McLachlan, try scorer East, lock Eli Southwick and second five Noah Rogers were big figures for their team.

At the presentations, a tournament team was selected, pictured below), with Rogers being named as the Player of the Tournament. This team will be posted to the HYRC website on Wednesday evening at this link: http://www.hyrc.org.nz/