Te Puna still unbeaten in Baywide club rugby

Tyrone Keith in action for Tauranga Sports. Photo / File

Is anyone going to stop the Te Puna juggernaut rolling through the Baywide Premier season all the way to the grand final?

Certainly, Te Puna are the team to beat on the form shown through an unbeaten run stretching to 11 first round matches and now two Premier 1 division games.

On Saturday they proved they can handle the pressure of leading for so long by demolishing Greerton Marist 65-19 at Maramataga Park.

It was not that Greerton fielded a weak team — far from it. It was just the ability of the forwards to get quality set-piece ball, the inside backs finding gaps in the defensive line and the best finishers in the competition, that made Te Puna's win so convincing.

In Rotorua, Whakarewarewa won a tense local derby over Rotoiti 23-19, Tauranga Sports enjoyed a 39-7 win over Mount Maunganui Sports while Te Puke Sports joined Te Puna and Whakarewarewa as the three unbeaten teams in the championship after they dispatched Rangataua 29-12 at Murray Salt Stadium.

A Te Puke penalty opened the scoring after seven minutes before Rangataua ran in their first try of the game to grab the lead. Cheyenne Dalley then dotted down the home team's first try with Jason Robertson adding two penalty goals to give Te Puke Sports a 16-7 lead at halftime.

A try to Lolomilo Lolomilo and more points from Robertson's boot stretched their advantage to 19 points before Rangataua crossed for their second try with 10 minutes to play.

Tauranga Sports put Mount Maunganui to the sword in the battle of the bridge at the Tauranga Domain, running in six tries on their way to a 39-7 victory.

The loss for defending champions Mount Maunganui follows a 34-0 hammering at home in round one by Te Puke.

The first Tauranga try came after just four minutes from Josh Honey and two more converted tries followed to one from the Mounties to give Tauranga a commanding 27-7 halftime lead that they extended further in the second half.

In the key game of Premier 2, in-form Rangiuru were beaten 30-20 away at Ōpōtiki while Arataki also lost at St Michael's by 25-17.

It was a good day for Judea and Papamoa in Baywide Division 1 with Judea beating Poroporo 52-22 and Pāpāmoa upsetting Paroa 25-22.

Katikati also had a good home win 41-14 over Eastern Districts in Division 2.