Full day of action at Ladies Day
Saturday was a celebration of Ladies’ Day under the mountain at Pirongia Rugby Sports Club as the four senior teams played at Pirongia Domain. The weather gods didn’t play ball and there was a fair amount of rain all day.
The Pirongia B team celebrated the father-son duo of Ross and Sam Denize appearing for the same team with a 30-12 win over Suburbs B.
The A team wore pink jerseys that were auctioned later that night and had a bit of a reversal of the B’s form.
Suburbs dominated, with the local guys struggling to get on top for large parts of the game.
Suburbs came out stronger and kicked an early penalty from about 40 metres on an angle.
A few minutes later they extended their lead to 10-0 when their first fiveeighth dummied and split the Pirongia defence to score near the posts, giving their kicker a comfortable conversion.
The Pirongia team responded by controlling possession and putting some phases together.
From a scrum five metres out, No 8 Inoke Dauniseka picked up and ran around the close defenders to score in the corner.
At 10-5, there was hope the mountain men could take control and turn phase possessions into points but too many errors and penalties resulted in turning over the ball too frequently.
Two more tries, one converted, meant the visitors went into halftime ahead by 22-5.
The second half was more of the same as the visitors dominated possession and used the ball they won more effectively than the home team.
Pirongia had their moments but couldn’t hold onto possession for long enough to put the visitors under pressure to convert.
Although they struggled as a team for most of the game, there were some strong individual performances.
Among the forwards, captain Shaun Coutts put all he had on the line, winning his lineouts, taking the ball up strongly and making tackles.
Prop Liam Hobbs was a mountain of strength and power in the tight, while Dauniseka ran hard all day, questioning Suburbs’ defence.
First five-eighth Graham Wade tried all day to improve the field position of the home team.
He was then required to play the last 20 minutes at halfback, where he looked comfortable clearing from the base and challenged the Suburbs defence.
The Pirongia Colts and Pirongia Mana Wāhine were the other two sides playing at home.
The Under-21 players just fell short 17-12 against Leamington Colts while the women had a strong showing but Waitete took the victory 30-17.