Sports pre-season starts with big win

After two false starts against Auckland’s College Rifles and Flaxmere’s Ma¯ori Agricultural College due to Covid, Te Awamutu Sports played their first pre-season match against the Ruakuri Contracting Waitomo side coached by King Country Rams stalwart Dean Church.

“They played with a lot of mana, we are very appreciative that Waitomo hosted us at the domain,” says Te Awamutu Sports head coach Travis Church (cousin of Dean).

“It was great to support our neighbouring cousins in the King Country and we just want to wish Dean and his side all the best for their season.”

Te Awamutu arrived with a large squad and had the luxury of presenting a different 15 in each half.

Down 28-0, having conceded four converted tries after 20 minutes, Waitomo regrouped and with experienced former Waikato and King Country back Joe Perawiti leading the way, restricted the scoring to just one try in the second quarter.

But Te Awamutu Sports were up 33-0 at half-time.

For Sports, ex-Hamilton Boys’ High School head boy and First XV cocaptain Sean Ralph bagged a double, former Te Awamutu College man George Poolman finished off two class tries with Boston McCullough, Latrell Smiler-Ah Kiong, Manahi Goulton and Clark Towers also crossing the line.

Conversions were slotted home by Taha Kemara (4/5), Dillon Martin (2/2) and Josh Bennett (1/1).

“For us it was nice to see our backs execute some long-range tries and our forwards were solid around our set-piece and at ruck time,” says Travis.

“We will go back to training this week, finetune our shape and work on our clarity further.

“Three-quarters of the side we took down were under-19s so it was nice to introduce them to senior level rugby.”