Three entertaining matches of Southland premier club rugby were played on Saturday.
Eastern Northern Barbarians earned a come-from-behind 34-30 win at Woodlands in the feature game.
Woodlands led 20-0 at halftime, but some strong words during the break were well-received by the Barbarians group and the fightback was on.
The introduction of three 2024 Stag members from the reserve bench also helped swing the momentum in the visitors’ favour.
Lock Woody Kirkwood, openside flanker Leroy Ferguson and halfback Connor Collins helped change the game.
Barbarians coach AJ Aitken said the team got straight into their work after the resumption.
“The boys played a basic style of rugby; we played for territory and scored the points from there.”
Aitken said Woodlands kept fighting until the end.
“We were defending the last five or six minutes and they did score another converted try to earn a bonus point.
“It was a great win for us, Cogs [Jacob Coghlan] was huge — he hooked into it. Woody has a huge presence and our replacement prop Mykel Sleeman had a great second half.’’
Halfback Collins and fullback Tayler Peterson were the best of the backs.
Barbarians scored four tries to three and Peterson kicked four conversions and two penalty goals.
This was the second close loss in a row for Woodlands, but they still hold second spot.
Pirates Old Boys beat Blues 44-27 at Balmoral Drive. The competition favourites outscored Blues seven tries to three.
Blues led 10-3 before centre Nick Munro scored in the corner to get POB on the front foot after 18 minutes.
Openside Dusty Coveney and No 8 Ben Keenan scored in quick succession before POB’s third loose forward, Kosei Miki, scored from a lineout drive to make it 27-13 at halftime.
Miki has recently joined POB from the Toyota Verblitz Club in Japan.
After halftime, POB put together some good interplay which ended in Coveney and Keenan scoring their second tries of the game out on the edges.
Star were beaten on their home ground 39-22 by Marist. Marist are third-equal on the points table alongside Barbarians with two rounds remaining.
— John Langford
