Stunning win for Waimea
The history books might have suggested it was an upset – Waimea Combined Schools and their supporters weren’t having a bar of it.
While many pre-match predictions indicated it was Nelson College’s game to lose, Waimea Combined instead turned on a stunning team performance to overwhelm the favourites 38-24 in Saturday’s UC Championship secondary schools rugby clash at Waimea College. It was Nelson’s first loss of the competition and frankly, the perennial playoff contenders and 2007 champions were barely in the hunt.
Waimea eventually outscored Nelson by six tries to four as Nelson at least secured a try-scoring bonus point. Essentially though, Nelson couldn’t match Waimea’s intensity as the home team just kept piling on the pressure to finally cement the biggest win of their brief history.
For Waimea co-coach Glen Thompson it was a huge statement about self belief.
‘‘It means everything. It’s a huge scalp to get one of the frontrunning teams and it just gives the boys a lot of belief that they can be a major player in this comp,’’ Thompson said.
‘‘When you believe and you follow your structures and play your heart out, you can beat anybody.’’
(Matt Stevenson 2, Josh McPherson 2, Jan Lammers, Jamie Thompson tries, McPherson 4 con)
(Max Fraine, Levi Carew, Ilaisa Gaberieli, Isaiah Malaulau tries, Leicester Faingaanuku con, Taine Robinson con) HT: 19-17.
Nelson had made some early inroads to lead 17-12 after 22 minutes but the two teams continued to match each other strike for strike as tries by Nelson hooker Max Fraine, Levi Carew and powerful winger Ilaisa Gaberieli were quickly countered by tries to Waimea winger Jan Lammers, fullback Matt Stevenson and halfback Jamie Thompson.
A stunned Nelson team headed to the break trailing 19-17 although any hopes of a fightback were shattered by quick tries to Waimea captain and No 10 Josh McPherson and Stevenson within 11 minutes of the restart. And suddenly at 31-17 down, there was no way back for Nelson.
McPherson added his second and Waimea’s sixth try for good measure and although Nelson substitute forward Isaiah Malaulau crossed virtually on fulltime to secure the bonus point, Waimea were already celebrating a historic victory.
Much of Waimea’s victory was about suffocating defence as they barely let a usually confident Nelson attack up for air. Nelson fullback Leicester Faingaanuku and Gaberieli still posed threats with ball in hand, but Waimea rallied superbly to constantly upset Nelson’s rhythm.
Thompson said there had been a huge emphasis on defence throughout the week.
‘‘They’ve got a lot of strike weapons in their team and we talked a lot about that before the game and how we wanted to shut them down and to a degree it worked, you know, you’re not always going to shut down a quality side like that.
‘‘All this week we’ve just worked hard on our defensive structures because we knew our attack would take care of itself. We’ve been guilty of falling off some one-on-one tackles and just not being structurally sound in our defence.
‘‘I just felt we wanted it more and the boys just really followed the game plan and pulled it off and it was fantastic to see.’’
Thompson said it was difficult to single out individuals in a totally committed team effort although McPherson and Stevenson at the back and loose forwards Caleb Delany, Reuben Chubb and Josh Grant epitomised Waimea’s desire and rugged determination.
‘‘Victories like that, you’ve got to have a 22-man buy-in and you can’t rely on any individuals, it’s a complete team effort.’’
Nelson prop Kyle Te Tai also produced an honest effort up front, including several big defensive hits, although Nelson’s day appeared best summed up when Faingaanuku spent the final minutes in the sin-bin for a dangerous tackle.
The challenge now for Waimea is to continue their momentum when they host Shirley BHS next Saturday.