Coach praises ‘gutsy’ performance
Understrength Pirates-Old Boys and Marist teams dig deep for round two Southland premier club rugby victories. Logan Savory reports.
Pirates-Old Boys coach Michael McKenzie has offered up plenty of praise for his players, suggesting their latest victory was one of the more gutsy he has seen.
Pirates-Old Boys made it two from two on Saturday when they toppled Star 18-14 at Waverley Park in Invercargill.
With the wind behind them, Star raced out to a 14-0 lead in the first half and McKenzie admitted it looked like it was on track to get very ugly as Star dominated proceedings.
However, three unconverted tries – to Greg Dyer, Kepu Suli, and Craig Smith – flipped the game as Pirates-Old Boys went from struggling at 14-0 down to lead 15-14.
Dyer pushed it out to 18-14 with a penalty before Pirates-Old Boys dug deep to hang on to victory.
Star threw plenty at Pirates-Old Boys late in the game through their big ball carriers, such as Jordan Stewart, Greg Pleasants-Tate, and Chris Apoua, but couldn’t crack the visitors’ defence.
That was even with veteran Pirates-Old Boys lock Smith spending 10 minutes off the field for a ruck infringement.
McKenzie was naturally thrilled to lock in a second straight win after the first-round 36-15 victory over the Eastern-Northern Barbarians seven days prior.
‘‘It was one of the more gutsy performances I’ve seen from an understrength team. You can’t coach that, it just comes from that culture that has been built up over years playing together,’’ he said.
They were missing four firstchoice hookers, which meant for some juggling. It included shifting a prop into hooker and bringing 41-year-old club stalwart Regan Johns off the bench.
Unfortunately, further injuries struck, and by midway through the second half the game was forced to uncontested scrums.
It was a blow for Star who had an edge at scrum time, although the home side still enjoyed plenty of possession and territory.
For Pirates-Old Boys, halfback Josh Murrell again impressed with his distribution but more so with his effort and accuracy in defence in just his second game of premier rugby.
McKenzie said they were well aware of his skills in attack heading into the season but said he had quickly shown he could match it physically in defence in the senior ranks as well.
Marist’s Marty Smith was another coach who was full of praise of his team on Saturday after his side knocked over defending champions Woodlands 27-22.
Like McKenzie, Smith labelled his team’s win as one of the most pleasing during his time coaching given they too were understrength and various players had to step up.
Both of Marist’s frontline props – Shaun Stodart and Reuben Northover – are on the injured list.
Stodart has a wrist injury and Smith said it remains uncertain how long he will be out for.
Marist tried to plug the frontrow gaps but when Tangaroa Walker injured his ankle early in the game and was forced from the field, this game, too, went to uncontested scrums.
Smith said it was disappointing that the majority of the game had to be played with uncontested scrums, but he added they had searched high and low to find replacement players.
‘‘You do what have you do to have a game,’’ Smith said about the uncontested scrums.
Marist pushed out to an early 13-0 lead on the back of a Will Murray try inside the first minute and a couple of Scott Eade penalties.
Woodlands scored first in the second half to bring it back to 13-7, and they continued to throw plenty at Marist.
Marist were put under further pressure when they lost two players – Siaki Taualofa and Scott Eade – for 10 minutes for professional fouls.
Remarkably Marist scored two converted tries during that period, one to Murray and another to Keanu Kahukura, to push out to a 27-7 lead.
However, Woodlands did not let up, scoring two tries and landing a penalty to close it to 27-22 with five minutes to play. Despite Woodlands finishing stronger, Marist hung on to win in what was a confidence-boosting first-up performance for the Miller St boys.
Loose forward Liam Udy-Johns impressed in his first outing for Marist, while hooker Flynn Thomas got 30 minutes off the bench in his comeback from injury.
While Midlands suffered another loss on Saturday, coach Dayna Cunningham was comfortable with where his team are at.
After a 53-26 first-round loss to Blues, Midlands went down 28-7 to the Eastern-Northern Barbarians on Saturday in Gore.
Midlands were the sole division one club prepared to step up into the premier ranks for the first round of the 2021 season at least.
Cunningham said he could not fault his team’s effort in the opening rounds and felt they were learning plenty by lining up in the top-flight competition.
He felt Saturday’s showdown with the Barbarians was a step up physically for his side and that tested them.
The Barbarians led 14-0 at halftime and pushed it out to 21-0.
With about three minutes to play Midlands scored a converted try to make it 21-7 and with time up the Barbarians scored again to push the final score out to 28-7.