Kaierau dazzle the opposition
Wanganui Car Centre Kaierau secured just their second victory at home in the Country Club over Byford’s Readimix Taihape in this modern era, hanging on 27-22 under lights on Friday night.
Having more familiarity with their freshly floodlit ground, especially as Taihape had not played an evening match as a group in Tasman Tanning Premier, Kaierau’s pinpoint high kickand-chase tactics worked well early on with the visitors struggling with depth perception as the ball came down.
Leading 10-0 after nine minutes and then 27-8 in the 51st after a couple of nicely worked backline attacks, it looked like the home side could be on their way to the biggest win over their regular semifinal opponents in many years.
But a mounting penalty count against them, notably in the rucks as well as an error where they briefly had 16 players on the field during a flurry of injury substitutions, let Taihape get into their signature pick-andgo tactics, scoring back-to-back tries from their veteran forwards off the bench to close the gap to five points with 17 minutes remaining.
Despite discipline under pressure still keeping them on the wrong side of the referee’s whistle, Kaierau managed to hold on through guile, disruption and steals off Taihape’s lineouts, and some strong defence in the midfield.
Standouts included second five Sheldon Pakinga who, due to a pulled muscle during warm-ups by first five and fellow try-scorer Ethan Robinson (who still played the full match), took over the goal-kicking as well as the important clearances, while shutting down two big Taihape rushes near his try-line late in the match.
Fullback Peceli Malanicagi scored a scorching try and set up another to hooker Ratu Sevanaia Vudiniabola.
For Taihape, the front row put mounting pressure on the home scrum, which was all the more meritorious when, right before halftime, the team suffered a heavy blow to their season with 2022 Steelform Whanganui prop Slade Hay-Horton went down with a broken leg.
Gabriel Hakaraia, Tru RatanaHorton, try-scoring reserve Jaye Flaws and lock Peter-Travis HayHorton carried the workload.
But having already seen the departure of a couple of representative forwards for this season, the loss of Slade Hay-Horton was a headache coach Sefo Bourke did not need.
“Unlucky for him, unlucky for us too, because we’re bloody short up front.
“He was going well. He was battling away with a gastro bug today, so he was almost going to be a scratching, but he came to do us proud.
“The first half, they came out with a lot more energy, a lot more urgency – they capitalised on our mistakes and got away to an early lead.
“We were playing catch-up for the rest of the game. Impact off the bench got us into the game but we weren’t just clinical enough in their 22m to snatch the game at the end.
“We’ll go back to the tape and get ready for Ratana next week.”
Kaierau coach Danny Tamehana was pleased the attacking kicks worked so well early, in a complete change of structure from the previous weekend’s loss to Waverley Harvesting Border.
“It was one of the tactical things we spoke about with our kickers – rather than go for distance, we’ll give up 20m but actually gain more by better line chase.
“The lights made it really hard and a bit more challenging for the opposition to catch the ball.”
He complimented Pakinga for stepping up to the main kicking roles when Robinson began noticeably limping.
“They try to share that between the two of them, so obviously it was to our advantage to have someone to back it up, but they don’t look too healthy at the moment, so we’ll take the win.
“You can’t take anything for granted — [Taihape] look like a good finals team, right to the bitter end, so you’ve got to stick to your structure.”
Kaierau have their own injury concerns; noticeably lock Matt Ashworth who needed stitches in a nasty deep forehead cut and went off before halftime.