Premier Men beat Wainuiomata on dark winter's day
Two days ahead of the shortest day, it was a dark and wet day in Wellington. Our Premier Men made the trip over the hill to Wainuiomata.
After exchanging early penalties, it was Marist St Pats who would score the first try of the game with in-form Keelan Whitman finding a gap to give his team a 10-3 lead. It was back and forth for the next 20 minutes with Wainui finding only a penalty kick before two more MSP tries, to Ofa Siale and Ken Kapeli, would give the visitors a 22-6 lead and a crucial bonus point.
Wainuiomata came out strong and scored the first try of the second half, but when Isaia Petelo scored at the 51 minute mark to give his side a 29-13 lead, the game looked like it might be sealed. It was far from that. At the 67 minute mark Tyrone Thompson was sent to the bin after a string of offside penalties, and replacement loose forward joined him two minutes later for the same offence. This gave the home side a glimmer of hope and they charged down the field to score a try and narrow the score to 29-20.
Those hopes were extinguished with three minutes to play when Andrew Wells calmly slotted a 40 metre penalty and the side was soon restored to full numbers. Final score: 32-20.
In earlier games, our Premier 2 and Colts side had tough losses to Hutt Old Boys Marist and Tawa respectively. Our Under 85s also had a heavy loss to Johnsonville.
However the Internationals had another good win, 40-10 over Upper Hutt and the Presidents retained the President's Cup with a close 17-14 win over Tawa. Our Premier Women had a bye.
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