Reserve Grade finalists found, college final winners crowned and wins for Wellington U19s and Māori sides

Hemi Fermanis surges ahead for Wellington Māori in their win against Wellington Samoa at Ngati Toa Domain.

• By Steven White & Scott MacLean
• Photos by Andy McArthur

An action-packed day of club, college and representative rugby today. A round-up of it all in club, college and representative order below.

Club

The Wellington Axemen and Tawa will meet in next week’s Reserve Grade Division 1 final for the John Davies Cup after contrasting semi-final wins today.

Top seed Wellington overcame the Paremata-Plimmerton Punters at Kilbirnie Park 2, while Tawa defeated the Petone Brotherhood 36-24 in their 2 v 3 semi-final.

College

St Pat’s Town claimed the Under 15 Championship Fr Gus Hill Cup, with the top seeds overcoming St Pat’s Silverstream 31-18 on their own field. Silverstream led early through prop Albert Devoe, but Town replied minutes later and took a 10-5 lead to the break through a Jack McLaren-Bacon penalty right on the intermission. Silverstream were first to score after half time through Legacy Tuiano, and when McLaren-Bacon and Ryder Caine exchanged penalties it was locked up at 13-apiece. Town though would score twice and while Silverstream would pull one back, a third McLaren-Bacon penalty and a try on fulltime would seal an ultimately comfortable margin.

The U15 Division 2 crown and Ross Findlay Cup went the way of Aotea College by 34-33 after an epic back and forth encounter with Kapiti College. The coast school led 12-0 early but found themselves trailing 12-17 at halftime as Aotea seized the initiative. The Porirua side then extended their lead to 12 soon after the resumption only for Kapiti to score twice against one for Aotea to trail 26-29 with 10 minutes remaining. Aotea would score, only for Kapiti to reduce the margin with five minutes left, but the side in blue held on.

In the U15 Division 3 final the combined Newlands/Onslow side were too good for HVHS winning 32-19

In the Under 55kg final, Wellington College used a devastating final quarter to stun Hutt International Boys’ School and take home the David Scott Cup. The first half was hard fought, with a HIBS penalty the only action on the scoreboard. The whitewash was finally breached by the Trentham school early in the second half, but College scored four converted tries from the 55th minute on to win going away.

Wellington College’s U16 Gold squad were first winners of the new Premier 3 Willie Leota Taonga, as they beat their St Pat’s Town U16 counterparts 17-12 in a real slugfest. The HIBS 2nd XV won the Premier 4 Onslow Cup, beating Wainuiomata High School 33-17.

The flagship game of the day was the Premier 2 Final for the Murray Jensen Cup. Given they had two sides playing in it it was always going to reside at Silverstream, and it’s probably no surprise that their 2nd XV were 41-5 winners over their 3rds.

Hutt Valley High School beat Tawa College 33-18 in the Coed Cup final at North, Park Petone on Friday night. HVHS won five tries to two.

In a feature First XV encounter at St Pat’s Silverstream, the home side drew 20-20 with Hastings Boys’ High School, but the Hawke’s Bay visitors proceed to the Hurricanes final because they scored the most tries (four tries to three).

In a first half of mostly missed chances, Hastings scored two late tries to take a 10-3 lead into halftime.

Silverstream came back early in the second half and it remained close, until they scored with just a few minutes left to tie up the scores.

The conversion was missed from a handy angle, followed by a missed long-range penalty with one minute to play and then a missed dropped goal attempt that fell short.

Hastings proceed to play CNI champions Feilding High School who beat Palmerston North Boys’ High School 34-28 in the other semi-final today.

Feilding High School also Won the Moascar cup for the first time.

In another First XV match elsewhere of interest, Southland Boys’ High School defeated Christchurch Boys’ High School 32-29.

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Representative

Two Wellington representative teams were playing away today.

At New Plymouth, the Wellington Centurions lost 36-43 to Taranaki Development, after being locked at 26-26 at halftime.

For the Centurions, wing Fritz Rayasi scored two tries and Cody Lokotui, Harry Press, Geordie Bean and Jacob Walmsley crossed. Solomon Uelese kicked two conversions and Ieti Campbell one.

At Lansdowne Park, Blehheim, the Wellington U19s beat the Tasman U19s in a thriller.

The Wellington U19s won the match 22-21 with a late penalty to first-five Liam Slight after it was 7-7 at halftime.

Wellington scored three tries, through lock Sam Thomson, left wing  Max Reynolds and replacement halfback Jake Lawson. First-five Liam Slight kicked two conversions and a penalty.

There was one local match, at Ngati Toa Domain between Te Upoko Wellington Māori and Wellington Samoa and for the Connor Garden-Bachop Taonga.

In an often torrid, free-flowing encounter, the Wellington Māori side held on to win 31-22.

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On a puggy field not always conducive for expansive play, both teams played as positively as possible. It was the extra Māori commitment up front and through the forwards’ exchanges that was key to them winning.

No. 8 Hemi Fermanis led a vibrant effort that challenged the opposition at scrum and lineout time as well as in many broken-field contests.

It was from a penalty directly off a defensive Samoa scrum under their posts with about 10 minutes to play that the Māori scored their winning try. They tapped and Māori replacement Jalen Lambert delivered an inside pass to centre Rewiti Katene Leat who scored to make it 31-17.

The Samoans rallied to the end and scored a consolation try on fulltime.

Earlier, the Māori had trailed 5-10 at halftime but broke the game open with three tries early in the second half, scored by blindside flanker Matt Jacobs, right wing Te Manawa Staples-Rei, and a replacement forward. All three tries were long range efforts, the first and second of which started inside their 22, and the third from a turnover and counterattack.

The Samoans regrouped and crashed over through one of their front rowers to make it 26-17. There was then a long period of general play before the Māori scored their winning try as described above.

Wellington Samoa had the first use of a moderate breeze during the first half and went close to scoring early. The Māori strung together several promising passages of play but were unable to cross the line on at least three occasions. As a result, the score was still locked at 0-0 after half an hour.

Finally, the first try came to the Māori through prop Connor Lemon after 90 seconds of continuous action.

The Māori were desperately unlucky not to cross again from a similar pattern of play. But the Samoans reeled in a short stab kick by Māori left wing Randall Bishop and launched a 90-metre counterattack to score their first try. Captain and second five Skivi Va’a made a telling break and offloaded to first five Jordan Soli who scored the try to make it 7-5 to the Māori.

With halftime bearing down, the Māori re-start from this try failed to go 10 metres. The Samoans packed down a scrum on halfway from which No 8 Alex Fidow ran off the back and offloaded to second five Va’a who entered the 22. The movement was carried on by first five Soli and the try was scored by centre Daniel Tafili. The conversion wasn’t good so the Samoans led 10-5 at half time.

They were almost in again early in the second half, but the Māori pounced for their three consecutive tries that won them the game.

Contrasting starts for Wellington’s neighbouring Heartland Championship sides this afternoon.

Horowhenua-Kapiti got away to an ideal start, thumping Buller 59-14 at the Levin Domain.

Wairarapa Bush went down 29-50 at Memorial Park, but they faced perennial contenders South Canterbury and led 24-22 going into the final quarter before the men from Timaru put the front down and ran in four tries to put the match away.