Waikiwi produce best effort
Barbarians coach Sean Hurley was delighted with the performance of the team throughout the round-robin stage this season.
‘‘I’m very happy. We lost 10 guys from last season, so to be able to back it up this season is great,’’ Hurley said.
However, he felt there was almost nothing seperating the four teams who have progressed to the playoffs and said it was wide open as far as finding a competition winner.
Saturday’s Marist-Barbarians game was proof of that with the lead changing some six times throughout the fixture.
It was Marist who started best and raced out to a 10-0 lead inside the first 20 minutes on the back of a penalty and converted try.
The Barbarians were under the pump but were eventually able to find some much-needed field position and by halftime grabbed a 14-10 lead.
The two teams continued to trade shots in the second half before the Barbarians got their noses in front by full time at 28-24.
Hooker Rory McCall and lock Brenton Howden had strong games for the Barbarians, while Stags halfback Jahvis Wallace impressed playing at first fiveeighth.
His opposite Scott Eade yet again controlled play well for Marist while midfielder Matty Johnson was immense both in attack and in defence.
Johnson is expected to feature in the Stags setup this season.
Both Marist and the Barbarians will still have a couple of trump cards to play in playoff action this Saturday with Marist flankers Phil Halder and Tangaroa Walker, and key Barbarians players Mike McKee and Hayden Stephens, all sitting out the last round-robin match.
Star and Woodlands will also square off twice in seven days after they lined up against each other in Saturday’s final round-robin game and will meet in a sudden-death semifinal this Saturday.
Woodlands had the opportunity to push their way into the allimportant second spot on the competition ladder but come up short losing 20-15 in another tight game at Woodlands.
In the process Star were able to also win both Scruffy Butt Memorial Shield and AWS Legal Cup to Star.
Woodlands were required to play a good chunk of the game with 14 players when wing Ra Kapene was deemed to have taken Star lock Manaaki Selby-Rickit out in the air.
It made the home team’s afternoon that bit more challenging, although Star had some discipline problems of their own with backs Bradley Gerken and Alesana Muliaina being shown yellow cards in the second half.
Woodlands hammered away at the Star line late in the game to try to snatch a win but weren’t able to cross.
Pirates-Old Boys saved their best for last on Saturday by finishing the 2017 season on a high with a 24-19 win over Blues.
Pirates-Old Boys were winless through the first nine games of an injury-marred season but in their final outing on Saturday tipped over Blues.
Blues went out to a 12-0 lead before Pirates-Old Boys clawed their way back into the game to eventually take the win.
The focus for Blues and PiratesOld Boys will switch to 2018 with their club season now over. Waikiwi played their best game of the season to beat Ohai-Nightcaps 45-10 at Nightcaps on Saturday.
Referee Steve Nicholson had to deal with tempers fraying in both teams and biff breaking out. Nicholson and the captains, Nick McCleery (Waikiwi) and Jaeden Philpott agreed to finish the game nine minutes early when OhaiNightcaps player Graham Levett broke his right leg in two places.
A Te Anau helicopter flew to the ground to transport Levette to Southland Hospital in Invercargill.
Confidence in the Waikiwi team grew after they scored two early tries and turned at half time leading 26-10.
Waikiwi’s seven tries were scored by Nick McCleery (two), Triton Bain (two), Thomas Gray, Shai Mitchell and Matt Moynihan. Shawn Henderson kicked five conversions.
Waikiwi’s manager, Alf McPhee, was delighted with the win.
‘‘That was a big improvement, definitely the best game they’ve played this season,’’ he said.
McPhee added it had been hard this season getting player numbers up for training and games.Eighteen players went to Nightcaps.
Ohai-Nightcaps captain Jaeden Philpott said the western Southland team had patches of good play on Saturday.
‘‘Waikiwi came at us pretty hard and we didn’t have any answers.’’
Philpott praised the efforts of Matt ‘scavenger’ Adams, Aidan Van Rooijen and William Terry.
‘‘Scavenger was strong on defense, Aidan was strong running with the ball and William tackled and ran good.’’
Van Rooijen and Ranui Tuki scored Ohai-Nightcap’s two tries.
Mossburn remain unbeaten in the division two competition after the recorded another impressive win on Saturday, this time a big 72-7 victory over Blues B.
Albion Exclesior is another frontrunner in the competition but were pushed to the wire by Wakatipu in their 27-23 win.
Fellow Gore club Pioneer is also having a strong season and notched up a 37-5 win over Tokanui on Saturday.
In division three action on Saturday Riverton beat Otautau 17-5 in a top of the table clash.
Star B won their third game in a row beating Pirates-Old Boys B 34-12 in a battle of the Invercargill clubs.