Jostling for semifinal seedings

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

THE top four places in the premier rugby competition have been decided after OBM’s win against Ngatapa on Saturday.

But the only thing certain about the match-ups is that GT Shearing Waikohu will meet the fourth-ranked team on July 14 . . . at present Enterprise Cars OBM are fourth.

Waikohu top the table with 50 points, after 10 bonus-point victories.

Even if coach Jason Tuapawa’s side were to lose both remaining matches, against HSOB on Saturday and OBM the following week, they could not be overtaken.

Second-placed East Coast Farms YMP have 37 points and only one match before the playoffs, against OBM on Saturday. If YMP win, they will finish second on 41 or 42 points.

A loss would open the door for Larsawn Ngatapa (third on 34pts) and OBM (fourth on 32pts but with two games to play) to leapfrog YMP.

Ngatapa player-coach Sione Ngatu’s men have the bye this week and are scheduled to end the second round with a match against bottom-of-the-table Roseland Tavern Tapuae at Wairoa, which should result in a bonus-point victory for Ngatapa.

That would leave Ngatapa on 40 points, — which would drop YMP (if they lost this week) to third and sweating on the outcome of OBM’s last match against Waikohu to avoid slipping to fourth.

Should OBM beat YMP and Waikohu, they could finish with a minimum of 40 points. Having beaten Ngatapa in the last match between the sides, they would go into second spot and have a rematch with Ngatapa, leaving YMP to face Waikohu.

Tapuae defaulted to Waikohu on Saturday but club officials have assured Poverty Bay Rugby Football Union chief executive Josh Willoughby that they will field a team against Charteris Choppers Wairoa Athletic on Saturday, a game being televised.

“They have told us they are all good for this weekend,” Willoughby said.

“That’s good news. They were promoted from the senior one competition and, as we said before, we want to do anything we can to help teams struggling and certainly don’t want to discourage teams.”