West Taieri continued its impressive South Otago premier round one form with a 43-0 demolition of Clinton on club day in Outram on Saturday.
Clinton piled the pressure on early but failed to reap the rewards, both because of its own mistakes and West Taieri’s determined defence.
West Taieri used its counter-attacking abilities with great success and tore Clinton open from turnover ball.
The score was 22-0 at halftime, but possession was fairly even. Clinton did all the hard work, only to throw the ball away at crucial times.
The second half was a spitting image of the first, with West Taieri capitalising on Clinton’s poor ball security. The home side ran in three further second-half tries, as well as keeping a commendable clean sheet.
Toko beat Clutha for the first time since 2009.
The Axemen defeated their opposition 33-28 on their club day at Milton.
The first half was a niggly affair, with both sides giving away numerous penalties, and neither could take advantage of this due to poor lineout accuracy.
Clutha led 14-6 at halftime before Toko hit back straight away in the second half.
Clutha started to gain momentum and took what looked to be an unassailable 28-13 lead with 20 minutes left, but Toko players rolled up their sleeves and mounted a comeback of which Lazarus would have been proud.
Based on a dominant scrum, Toko made metres up the middle before showing its wares out wide.
Clutha led by a single point with time almost up, but the home side was not done yet. Continued pressure forced Clutha into giving away two late penalties which Toko kicker Jacky Scott gratefully accepted to give his side a monumental win in front of a huge home crowd.
Heriot did not take long to rebound with a 43-35 win over Crescent at Kaitangata.
Heriot led just 17-14 at halftime, but dominated the game after the break. Its midfield found holes and exploited them well, which gave the wingers ball in open space.
Towards the end of the game, Crescent fought back with three late tries to close the gap on the scoreboard, but Heriot’s earlier dominance had created a big-enough gap.
Clutha Valley kept in touch with the competition leaders with a 31-20 win over Lawrence.
The defending champion did not find it easy, however, as Lawrence was well up for the fight at home.
Lawrence scored two early tries to show its intent. Its scrum was strong and put plenty of pressure on the Valley tight five.
Valley paid the price for a slow start and an inability to put phases together and trailed 20-19 at halftime.
But it found its mojo in the second half; building on a platform of strong defence, it scored two further tries and kept Lawrence at bay.
— Francis Parker
