FOB-Ōroua look to long-term gain
Feilding Old Boys-Ōroua's embattled senior club rugby side are determined to stick it out in senior A.
Even though they’ve conceded 393 points in six games and fell 94-5 to College Old Boys on Thursday night, the club sees its foray back in the top drawer as a fourto-six-year project.
The Stags' long-serving manager, Kevin Ching, knew Thursday's encounter against the competition leaders would be testing.
FOBO acceded to COB’s wish to play on Thursday, under the lights on Johnston Park's No 2 ground instead of at Kimbolton, so COB could go duck shooting on Saturday.
FOBO have few of last year's senior B champions side, which has disappointed the club.
“We are going through pain, but we're unearthing guys who can play,” Ching said. “Obviously it doesn’t show on the scoreboard.
“When we won the Hankins Shield in 2018, that team was six years in the making.
“They're getting better every week. We are running a small squad, but we have a core.”
When they played Varsity recently they lost every scrum and lineout. Now he says they’re winning 85% of those.
They should get a reprieve from the pain when the competition splits into the bottom four and top five after May 25.
In 2018 it was FOBO who trounced Te Kawau 109-7 at Kimbolton. Freyberg had two 100-point losses in 2015 and in 2008 Oroua lost 112-0 to COB, the year before Oroua merged with Feilding Old Boys. Varsity beat Linton Army 96-7 in 2010.
Five tries to wing Jaxon Lees and the re-emergence of Hurricanes flanker TK Howden helped Feilding swat aside Linton Army 69-7 at Johnston Park on Saturday.
Lees was on the end of countless breaks and slick offloading from midfielders Carlos Ropoama-Third and Kyle Brown and new fullback Pita Manamanaivalu, a Manawatū academy player on debut. First-five Andre Hoggard played his 50th.
Howden has had a remarkable recovery from his grade-two big toe ligament injury after his foot was stuck under a Blues prop. It might have been season ending, but he was in plenty of action in his 50 minutes on Saturday.
“I'm just excited to be back playing,” he said, with plenty of Hurricanes games left.
Yellows did bomb tries early on, but once the passes stuck they easily outflanked Linton who had outside backs going for intercepts which did them no good.
Even Feilding's subs looked a cut above when they came on and many of the tries were too easy as they retained the Lt Tim O’Connell Trophy.
Other standouts for Yellows were hooker Niki Cuming and lock Kepa Bryce.
Linton badly missed experienced gents Leif Scwencke (injured), TJ Oliver and Harry Black.
They kept Feilding scoreless for the opening 22 minutes and held in the scrums but missed too many tackles. They tried to run everything including from their own 22 and it wasn't wise.
Varsity got their four-tries bonus point in downing Freyberg 28-3 at Colquhoun Park with a rare try to hooker Tim Stone in his 50th game.
In a high-intensity first half with Varsity on top in territory and possession, Freyberg had defended ably to restrict the students to 10-3. Freyberg's three points came from a Carson Hepi penalty in the 39th minute, only for Varsity to score a minute later.
Excelling for Varsity were locks Cody Borlase (until injured) and Sam Dyer, and at No 8 Julian Goerke, who was aggressive, as was Dylan Hall back at flanker from hooker. The backs spun a lot of ball, possibly too much.
Turbos prop Joe Gavigan played at both loosehead and tighthead and Freys competed in the scrums until the subs came on.
Other standouts were flanker Michael Halatuituia against his old club, hooker Apelu Tautele and No 8 Chris Lafaele.
Kia Toa put a dampener on Old BoysMarist’s club day with a 58-17 demolition at the Arena. It was all one-way traffic as OBM failed to fire a shot after a promising opening 10 minutes.
The Va’a brothers, Sase and Pena, led the strong Kia Toa display, with the former setting the tone with his physicality up front and the latter constantly punishing OBM’s mistakes. Hooker Sase scored one try and wing Pena bagged four.
The speed of Kia Toa’s attack was the story of the game.
OBM looked to build pressure, but each time they coughed up the ball, Kia Toa launched straight onto attack with pace with halfback Logan Love driving the tempo.
Kia Toa’s pack had the wood up front and put the young OBM halves combo of Jai Tamati and Liam O’Connor under pressure.
OBM managed to hit back with a brace of tries late in the game, fitting reward for two of their top performers O’Connor and Tyson Savai’i.
The win maintains Kia Toa’s unbeaten start to the season and it’s hard to see that changing over the next three weeks before they face fellow unbeaten side College Old Boys.
Freyberg pulled off a major upset in the Prue Christie Cup women’s competition as they rolled defending champions Kia Toa 24-10 at Colquhoun Park.
After a hefty loss to Old Boys-Marist last week, Freyberg reversed their fortunes, with a slick performance led by fullback Maia Davis, first-five Jayda Maniapoto and usual halfback Paige Lush, who started on the wing.
Old Boys-Marist were dominant in their 75-7 win over Wairarapa Wahine Toa at the Arena.
The Palmerston North Boys’ High School first XV beat Feilding High School 36-22 at the Arena.
Part of the Hurricanes’ pre-season festival, it was the first time the two schools had played in nine years and fifth time since World War II.
Men:
COB 94 (Jared Sellwood 4, Misinale Epenisa 3, Andre Taylor 2, Ben Minhinnick photos: 2, Henale Oliveti, Junior Sione, James Tofa, Leaongo Tanginoa, Michael Stassen, tries; Rihari Jobe 7 con) FOBO 5 (Saimone Hakaimotu try) HT 48-5.
Feilding 69 (Jaxon Lees 5, Carloa RopamaThird, Niki Cuming, Matt Anstis, Josiah Johnston, Hayden Stratford, Shaq Waara, tries; Jamie Kitchen 6, Kyle Brown, cons)
Linton Army 7 (Troy Sherriff try; Taiaha Mangu con) HT 24-0.
Varsity 28 (Kobe McLean, Sam Dyer, Tim Stone, Scott Davidson, tries; Logan Henry con, 2 pen) Freyberg 3 (Carson Hepi pen) HT10-3.
Kia Toa 58 (Pena Va’a 4, Logan Love 2, Sase Va’a, Jarrod Mackey tries; Love 6 con, 2 pen) OBM 17 (Tyson Savai’I, Liam O’Connor tries; O’Connor 2 con, pen) HT: 27-3
Women:
Freyberg 24 (Elinor-Plum King, Tiaana Rolls, Kaia Walker-Waitoa, Jayda Maniapoto tries; Maia Davis 2 con) Kia Toa 10 (Taylor Waterson, Cairo Hapeta-Te Kura tries)
OBM 75 (Kahurangi Sturmey 2, Anahera Hamahona 2, Wikitoria Doyle 2, Rangimarie Sturmey, Season BlackburnKingi, Kaelyn Ilangana, Bridget McGirr, Ngano Tavake, Laura Claridge, Hannah Cadzow tries; Claridge 5 con) Wairarapa Wahine Toa 17
Jack Miers’ quest for four consecutive Manawatū Superstock titles came to an abrupt end in a spectacular final heat at the Robertson Prestige International Speedway on Saturday night.
With some of the largest fields of the season the big crowd was treated to some huge rolls over the three heats of the Manawatū Superstock and Stockcars titles on the final night of the speedway season.
Miers appeared in a good position to equal Gary Parkes’ record of four consecutive Manawatū titles going into the final heat. Even though he was in third place he was just two points behind the top two, Wellington’s Trent James and Stratford 2NZ Blair Uhlenberg. Miers had a start in the third heat midfield while the other two were at the back of the field.
Miers’ race ended almost as soon as it began in the middle of turn four on the opening lap. In a massive crash with eight cars involved Miers came out badly as he was left hanging on the wall. Despite being given a chance to get off he was stuck solid and his title hopes were gone.
Cameron MacDonald was left in a precarious position as was fired into the wall by Bryce Hackett who was then shoved from behind by four following cars which shunted MacDonald further up the wall.
When the race was quickly halted MacDonald’s car was left up the wall and pointing vertically straight up the catch fence, which did a brilliant job keeping the car within the track. In one of the more awkward extrications of a car from a wall it took the track crew almost 10 minutes to get MacDonald’s car down.
Once the race restarted so many of the 31-car field were left on the infield that James just needed to stay out of trouble to become one of the few visiting drivers to win a Manawatū title. A sixth place gave the 17-year-old James the title by three points from Scott Joblin. The most improved driver this season, Brett Hyslop, picked up a deserved third place overall in his impressive self built car.
A 20-lap race then decided the Lucas Oil series final with William Humphries, who was debuting his brand new superstock, holding on to the lead to take the win from Wellington’s Brad McGhee, Stratford’s Hamish Booker, Whanganui’s Kaelin Mooney and Scott Williams.
Hyslop had led out but pulled to the infield early on, leaving Humphries in a lead he never looked like relinquishing.
The Manawatū title went the same way as the King of the Arena last week with Palmerston North Pumas driver Jaden Hall firing Wellington’s Tim Parker, who was leading on points after two heats, into the wall. Parker did well to get going again.
However it opened the door for national champion Kyle Rowe who added the Manawatū title to the King of the Arena.
Daniel Burmeister finished second overall, seven points behind Rowe. Parker beat Hamish McLeod in the run-off for third.
Super-Saloon driver Peter Bengston has made giant strides in the class and finally won a feature in his green machine, along the way showing an ability to get past other drivers during a race.
Steve Flynn seemed headed for the feature win until he went slightly wide allowing Bengston to squeeze up the inside. Steve and Grant Flynn took the other race wins.
There were plenty of rolls during the three heats with Dion Mooney, who once rolled four cars in one race, being on the receiving end as he was rolled twice in consecutive heats.
William Humphries was the clearcut winner of the Lucas Oil series final.