Arrowtown captain seals win with try
ARROWTOWN captain Malcolm Sutherland admits he thought the second spell syndrome was going to strike again when his team slumped from a halftime lead of 176 to trail 1719 in the space of six minutes against Upper Clutha at Tarras on Saturday.
‘‘It was worrying at that stage,’’ he said, ‘‘but I was positive our onfield management would get us through this time.’’
And it did. And who scored the winning try? Sutherland himself, 10 minutes from time.
Sutherland had given his team a blast in a wellpublicised captain’s speech following a dramatic capitulation against Maniototo a fortnight ago.
‘‘We lost the plot in the second half against Maniototo, for sure,’’ he said, ‘‘but that wasn’t the situation this time.
‘‘Upper Clutha have a much stronger bench than us and it was their replacement players who turned the game around.
‘‘But we didn’t panic. We regrouped and finished stronger than them. We desperately needed that win. It’s put us back on course.’’
Sutherland said that Saturday’s result, which won his team the Neil Purvis Memorial Trophy, illustrated how little separates the top four teams in the competition, top team Wakatipu being only two points ahead of fourth team Arrowtown.
Upper Clutha and Wakatipu drew, Wakatipu beat Arrowtown by one point and now Arrowtown has beaten Upper Clutha by three points.
About 500 spectators turned up at Tarras on Saturday, more than twice the population of the farming settlement, which is allocated one premier game each season.
Upper Clutha fullback Ben Purvis, son of All Black Neil, was making his 100th appearance and nothing would have been more appropriate than him scoring a try.
It seemed he had, in the 48th minute, but after a discussion with his touch judge, the referee ruled the final pass had gone forward, albeit by millimetres.
Arrowtown deserved the victory in that it scored three tries to one, but the booming boot of Upper Clutha firstfive Brodie Flannery almost stole an improbable victory. He dramatically lifted his team from 1317 to 1917 in the second half with successive goals from 43m and 48m.
Just as the Arrowtown supporters were thinking ‘‘here we go again’’ their team swung on to attack and after penetrating runs by Tom McFarlane and replacement Joe Sluman, the skipper dotted down.
After the referee had blown for fulltime, his touch judge reported foul play by Sutherland, so play was restarted with a penalty to Upper Clutha, but it was not able to capitalise.
Wakatipu made hard work of retaining the White Horse Trophy against Alexandra, which had conceded 50 points in each of its last two outings.
Alarm bells were ringing with 20 minutes to play, when Alex led 1712, but a late try by left winger Lawrence Wadham, who was named man of the match, ensured the trophy remains in Queenstown.
Maniototo followed up its shock victory over Arrowtown with a seventry romp against Cromwell Cavaliers. Standout players for Maniototo were first five Herb Adam and defenders Bede McNamara and Adam Chamberlain.