Big challenge for GBHS,First away game for 2019 won’t be easy

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

RUGBY

The first away game of a season can be very revealing.

So, although the Gisborne Boys’ High School first 15 played top rugby in the 66-12 win at home against Lindisfarne College last Saturday, their fans should expect tomorrow’s 12pm clash with Auckland rugby bastion Kelston Boys’ High School to be closer.

Kelston snatched a 29-23 victory 20 seconds from fulltime at Gisborne’s Rectory field in 2018. Blindside flanker Asoelei Fretton plucked a loose ball out of the air down a narrow left corridor and scored the visitors’ fifth try on a wet day.

GBHS scored three excellent tries against a bigger team in last year’s clash, and while rain is likely again tomorrow, Mark Jefferson’s Gisborne team showed that they could operate in those conditions a week ago.

“We need to be physical against Kelston in the tackle and at the breakdown — the Hurricanes’ Darren Larsen gave us some tips on that at a session on Monday,” said coach Jefferson. “We need to continue on with the intensity we started with in the first half v Lindisfarne.”

Gisborne captain, loosehead prop Jordan McFarlane, scored a first-half try in the 2018 instalment, and uses that loss as motivation.

“It was really gutting last year to lose in the last minute, which makes this year that much more exciting, to get our chance to take it home,” said the 17-year-old, who scored GBHS’ first try this season.

“I just want our boys to stick to the game plan against a strong team and give it all that they have.”

John Senio, in his second year as Kelston’s head coach, has 15 players back from last year’s squad, which finished eighth in the 12-team 1A competition.

Kelston lost 17-24 to Hastings Boys’ High School in Hastings last Saturday.

“The boys have been looking forward to this. We want to play quick, direct rugby with flair,” said Senio, who anticipates a crowd of 400. “GBHS can also play an expansive brand of rugby — tough, uncompromising.”

Senio is pleased with his team’s level of fitness but knows too that ball retention is a must. To that end, hooker Aukusitino Salanoa — an aggressive player on both sides of the ball — wants to repeat his strong showing of 2018 at the Rectory, as does 16-year-old halfback Sam Howling. Salanoa and Howling were members of the Untouchables, the Ponsonby Kelston junior team which between 2007 and 2015 won 150 games in a row.

For Gisborne Boys’, the forward effort to be led by McFarlane and his pack needs to be consistent, accurate, disciplined. Lock Tiaan Barbara-Hei’s hat-trick v Lindisfarne was the well-deserved icing for hard work. Kelston may look to play the game as close to breakneck pace as they can — both teams play attacking rugby — but the quality and experience of the visitors’ senior players will be crucial. McFarlane and his team have the skills and nerve to beat Kelston in Auckland, but it won’t be easy.

The first 15 will play at 12pm and the second 15 at 9.30am, both at Kelston, while GBHS under-15s and under-14s will both play at 9.30am at the nearby Archibald Park.