Rams need a miracle home game

The Upper Hutt Rams will play their last game of 2106 rugby at Maidstone Park this Saturday.

And with a 2.15 start, thanks to the Hurricanes quarter-final, the match with Tawa cannot come quick enough.

The Rams were at their frustrating best against Poneke on Saturday.

After gambolling to a 27-8 lead thanks to an out-of-the-box Salesi Rayasi effort and carbon copy intercepts to Tafa Tafa, they gave up 38 points to wave the game and, barring a miracle and every other Jubilee Cup result going their way, their season bye-bye.

The match was a microcosm of the side’s Jubilee Cup where quality play is spread too sparingly among costly distracted, errorriddled paggages.

Poneke were not rattled by the Ram’s jet speed start and in the remaining 60 minutes dished out a lesson in orthodox, organised rugby. In contrast Upper Hutt were tactically poor, making hard work of exit plays and struggling for field position.

The pressure told on the forwards and the defence overall as the points piled up before the Rams claimed their trademark late, fourth try to Petara Rikiriki.

The consistent Daniel Schrijvers got through a ton of defensive work in the fringes and Tafa enjoyed the early easy pickings in his first start in the side’s troubled number 13 jersey.