Bringing down the Mastadons

Paul Dwyer gives his weekly take on the club rugby scene.

The Wrap

Kaik continued its giant-killing run (reminiscent of last year but earlier!) with a massive upset of the previously unbeaten Southern outfit. Hero Ben Miller broke the stalemate with a 45m penalty to bring down the Southern Mastodons.

Taieri made it two from two with a gutsy win over a poor Alhambra-Union side in an uninspiring encounter at the Eelpit.

Kaik, AU and Taieri are now just outside the four.  Dunedin was boringly efficient in dispatching Varsity, is still unbeaten and flying under the radar.

Varsity has now lost three straight and it doesn’t get any easier  this week against Harbour.  It is only a point to the good of the chasing pack.  Zingari came good in the second spell to keep the  Hellyer  in its possession and record its first win.  GI now languishes winless with the wooden spoon clenched firmly in its collective teeth.

Appalling!

Was it just me or was the officiating in the Highlanders game against the Cheetahs just appalling? How Matt Faddes could be binned for an innocuous tackle right in front of a touchie is beyond me.  Faddes tackled the winger as he released the ball, in a fair tackle.  The touchie deemed it a stiff arm, high and late.  The ref then sent him from the field for having no arms in the tackle and late!  Make up your minds!Aki Seiuli then nearly had his head taken off in the second spell which the ref initially declared fair. This was reversed.

In the incident, the ball came off Seiuli’s shoulder and went forward. Dixon picked up and scored — so why no try?  Late in the game, the Cheetahs were mauling close to the Highlanders line when the hooker peeled off looking for the try. He was immediately tackled and the Highlanders were penalised for collapsing a maul — go figure!  Good to see officiating in the republic hasn’t changed — and the Cheetahs still lost!

Dean Collins.
Dean Collins.
How the mighty ... !

Renowned Eels prop Dean Collins was having a run around at No8 for their prem IIs at the weekend against old foe West Taieri. With minutes to go and the scores all locked up, the Eels set up a driving maul in the West Taieri 22 and drove menacingly towards the line.

Collins, always looking for the cherry, was in the van and, as the forwards approached the line, he detached, dived over to win the game and flung his arms in the air in triumph.  Sadly, he’d scored at the 5m mark and West Taieri picked it up and went 95m to win the game!

The crowd was in hysterics and even the grizzled visage of Eels coach John Hornbrook broke into a tattered smile — good-on-you-Deano humour won the day!

The blue line

And no it’s not a lot of steam-rollered police uniforms.  Some of the grounds used for rugby in the city, especially junior rugby, cannot be roped off.  The mighty metro committee, Otago Rugby and refs are trialling blue lines on the side of these grounds for crowd control (see photo on this page).

So bottom line, if you see the famous blue lines, stay behind the bloody things so everybody — players, refs and spectators — gets a decent crack!  Speaking of refs, I reported Chairman Mao (Chris Hart, refs boss) gave everybody at metro a spray recently re roped grounds.

Well, the promised Donaghys free rope has now arrived and the word is Harty will personally deliver it to all clubs — keep an eye out for him, you can’t miss him!

The White Horse

So the big game in Country this weekend is between the biggest of enemies, Arrowtown and Wakatipu.  This is similar to Celtic and Rangers.  Not only is it for the famed Horse, it is a top-of-the-table clash.

Wakatipu is unbeaten this season and Arrowtown is travelling pretty well.  I said a few weeks ago when I covered a White Horse Arrowtown game that it has to play its games at Frankton.  Well, big Jim Boult (the mayor) must have listened as the game is in Arrowtown so it’s all on for young and old — if you’re within 100km get there, it will be a cracker!  I hear big Jim Thompson (Welcome Back Kotter), the ref development officer, is going to make sure everything is run above board — God help them.  I hope the passionate Sparky (Simon Spark, Arrowtown coach) and Kotter play well together in the sandpit!  I’m tipping the visiting team, Wakatipu, to get up — too big, too strong out wide.

Speaking of Country

Barry Williams, the mayor of Middlemarch, is on the warpath.  He runs Strath Taieri rugby and pleaded with the Metro boys to give them duck-shooting weekend off in the senior town grade.  He reckons if we can allow for the keg party at Hyde St we must be able to allow for the hallowed of hallowed — duck-shooting.  Apparently not, and they had to default to GI at the weekend.  To be fair, Dean Power and the GI Boys were happy to play on the Friday night to accommodate the Strath Taieri lads but strangely duck-shooting starts really early up there — I wonder why!  A word of advice for next year, let’s get this sorted in March when the draws are done so we can keep everybody happy!

Reunion looms

This weekend Ben Whale, Marcus Schaaf and Sione Misiloi all play their 50th games for the Harbour Hawks against Varsity — good work, lads.  Big prop George Bower played his 50th against AU a couple of weeks ago.  All the players will be presented with their blazers by Goldie Wilson (he’d better turn up!) at the 25th jubilee on May 27.

Speaking of Harbour front rowers, I was looking forward to seeing new prop Benny Rumble turning out for the Hawks against AU a couple of weeks ago but he was a mysterious no-show.  I questioned Hale T (the coach) on the absence and he said work comes first for Benny and he was out fixing roads.  Perhaps I’ll get him up to Every St and,  hopefully, he can fix that after being out for nine months!

This weekend

The sponsors haven’t presented a serious challenge so now on to the prem captains starting with Tom Rowe from Zingers so the unbeaten run continues unabated.  Kaik (13+), fresh on the back of two big wins, abseils down from the Veldt and hits the road to the Toolbox to take on GI.  With Hemopo out, Kaik will be too big, too strong.  AU (13+) is at home to Zingers and it has been bolstered by flying winger Jona Nareki, the only Otago rep in the NZ Colts and wunderkind  Vilimoni Koroi who has taken the sevens world by storm this year.  Even though it is for the Grace Mills,  if these kids get enough ball watch out!In the big game of the round, Southern hosts the Sharks (12-) in a top-of-the-table clash and this will decide the Speight’s Jug for the first-round winner.  Southern is coming off its first defeat and the Sharks are unbeaten, so nearly too close to call but Sharks just.

The third and fourth-ranked teams go at it at the Oval and Harbour (12-) with its all-round strength might just consign Varsity to its fourth straight loss. Who would have picked that at the start of April?

paul.dwyer@alliedpress.co.nz

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