Our Premier, Premier Reserve and Colts sides all travelled to their most distant away games of the season to play Upper Hutt Rams at Maidstone Park. All three came away victorious. Earlier in the city our Premier Women fell in a nailbiter to Paremata-Plimmerton.
In the early games our Colts held out in a spirited match to win by one point, while the Premier Reserves had no trouble with their Rams counterparts notching up their ninth consecutive win.
In the Swindale Shield round, Andrew Wells in the fourth minute broke through the defence on halfway before sending the ball wide to wing Kerrod Foaese to finish (with some work to do) from 20 metres. Despite this, a high penalty count stifled our ability to win possession in the first half and although we scored two tries to one, we found ourselves down 14-16 at the half time break.
Two tries in the first six minutes of the second half propelled the Red Machine into the lead and they didn't look back. Those tries to Ken Kapeli and a penalty try set a 28-16 lead which would be extended by two particularly impressive team tries (video below) to seal the bonus point victory.
It's back to Evans Bay for our Premiers and Premier Reserves as they host Avalon, the Colts will host Petone on the Artificial Turf. Our Women travel to Fraser Park where they also play Avalon.