Cobbo and Co claim win over Ma¯ori men
The Ma¯ori All Stars failed to make home field advantage count as winger Selywn Cobbo stole the show with a fourth quarter hat-trick to seal the Indigenous All Stars 28-24 win.
The Broncos star, who has recently been slapped with a $15,000 fine for publicly criticising his club coach Kevin Walters, showed no signs of that impacting his play as he stunned the big crowd in Rotorua with three tries in 12 minutes.
It was the first time this annual fixture to kick off the new rugby league season took place in New Zealand, although moving it across the Tasman in a year after a World Cup made the ‘‘All’’ in the teams’ names a bit of a stretch.
When the teams for this game were initially announced, the Ma¯ori All Stars were arguably the stronger of the two sides on paper, but the withdrawals of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Nelson Asofa-Solomona, Joey Manu and Dallin WateneZelezniak, among others, evened things up.
The Indigenous All Stars hadn’t won this fixture since 2019, which was the first time the Ma¯ori All Stars replaced the World All Stars, but for most of this game it looked like that barren run would continue.
Zach Dockar-Clay had a stroke of luck in the third minute, with his grubber kick close to the line bouncing off the post pad and coming straight back to him and after catching it he dived in to give the Ma¯ori the lead. But the Indigenous team struck back in the 14th minute via Tyrell
Sloan.
In the 22nd minute former Warriors centre Jesse Arthars gave the Ma¯ori All Stars their second try as the Indigenous All Stars became guilty of making a number of errors inside the red zone. But when Nicho Hynes got hold of the ball after a broken play, he made a dazzling run from 10m out to score.
Before the break Josh Kerr put a shoulder charge into the face of James Fisher-Harris, which caused the Panthers star to bleed from the mouth and it was a hit certainly not in the spirit of this game.
Brent Naden for the Indigenous team and the Ma¯ori All Stars’ Jordan Riki both scored tries over the third quarter.
The final 20-minute period began with a 95m run by Cobbo, with no-one able to grab hold of him and he went on to pick up two more.
Another former Warrior, Preston Riki scored a try with three minutes to go for the Ma¯ori All Stars, but his teammates weren’t able to mount a sensational comeback.