TAKING THE BALL UP: Tighthead prop Whetu McGhee had a strong game in the 42-5 loss to St Peter’s last Saturday. Picture by Paul Rickard
High noon has arrived for the Gisborne Boys' High School first 15.
Tomorrow at midday, a team that has come near yet seemed to be frustratingly far from victory in their Super 8 campaign will challenge five-time defending champions Hamilton Boys' High School for both the coveted Moascar Cup and the Vesty Thomas Cup they have held since 2012.
GBHS have won five games — against Western Heights High School (41-0), Lindisfarne College (36-8), St Paul's Collegiate School (8-7), Wellington College (33-24) and St John's College of Hastings (54-0) — so far this season.
But they have only tomorrow's away match and the clash here with Tauranga Boys' College — for the Kane Trophy held by TBC, on August 6 — left in which to add to their one Super 8 point.
Hamilton have won 13 Super 8 titles and shared one with Hastings BHS in 2017.
Both Hamilton and Gisborne have played five Super 8 games to date.
The 24-17 loss to Napier BHS in Napier on June 11 is the closest GBHS have come to a win, while Hamilton's 28-19 victory over Rotorua at Raukura five weeks ago is the closest they have come to defeat in 2022.
GBHS head coach Duane Hihi knows that history beckons. Rarely do players get to play in two Moascar Cup challenges, let alone against two different opponents in a season. He knows, when times are tough, how GBHS rugby character can rise to the occasion.
If some have short memories: Gisborne beat tomorrow's opponents 32-6 here 11 years ago and went on to win their first Super 8 title, in a 15-from-19 season.
Hihi said: “This week, on and off the training field, we've focused on controlling what we can do better, rather than what they do. If we can be more accurate with what we do consistently, we'll put up a good fight.
“We're under no illusions, playing one of the best teams — if not the best team — in the country on their home ground for the Moascar Cup.
“It's a challenge to play teams of the calibre of St Peter's College and Hamilton two weeks in a row.”
St Peter's College of Epsom beat GBHS 42-5 at the Rectory last Saturday.
“We are capable of competing with those teams, if we believe in ourselves.”
St Peter's regarded Gisborne as being most dangerous from broken play. The home team's try on fulltime came from captain and first five-eighth Carlos Hihi's wide bomb and reserve right wing Izaiah Fox's great catch. It was an example of opportunity meets execution, producing result.
Tomorrow GBHS will need to communicate, organise, be business-like and purposeful on the field at all times, alert to every possible threat, be spatially aware, and never rest.
Power and cohesiveness up front, at set-piece, in the tackle and the breakdown, will be of equal importance; Gisborne will be competitive if they take care of these things.
Vice-captain and blindside flanker Dylan Bronlund and lock Joe Kemp are good value at the lineout, tighthead prop Whetu McGhee and rake Lathaneal Karakia-Niwa all played strongly against St Peter's. No.8 Reuben Whaitiri carries the ball well also but Bronlund has played in the last two games against HBHS, which Hamilton won 50-5 in 2021, 80-5 in 2020, and the Gisborne No.6 — who in the absence of first-five Hihi's regular co-captain tighthead prop Nathaniel Hauiti due to injury, is GBHS' most experienced forward — can speak with authority to what needs doing: “Defence wins games against big teams like Hamilton, and we're ready for the task ahead.”
HBHS's head coach, former New Zealand secondary schools head Nigel Hotham, has not forgotten those memorable occasions in the past two decades in which GBHS got up, as in 2011 and the Top 4 semi-final of 2007: Gisborne avenged a 10-18 Super 8 loss at home with victory 12-5 at Pukenga Park, just outside Rotorua.
Hotham said: “It's great to play at home but over the years, we've also loved playing at the Rectory, with its history and atmosphere, and because the area's always produced great raw talent.”
Hamilton began their Super 8 campaign with a 24-12 win against New Plymouth at the Gully, and are coming off a 30-5 shellacking of Tauranga at HBHS.
A win to Gisborne tomorrow — in what is expected to be wet weather in front of a large crowd, icy nor'easter or not — would be the biggest upset of the competition so far.
The man in the middle for kick-off at 12pm, on first 15 debut, is Waikato premier referee Ben Brownlie.