Rugby HSOB v Ngatapa -
NGATAPA bounced back from last week’s 60-14 hiding by OBM to beat premier leaders High School Old Boys 28-26 at Campion College on Saturday.
Centre Kieran Short was the two-try hero for Ngatapa. His second try, in the 80th minute, completed a remarkable comeback.
With one game remaining before the sudden-death semifinals, the win puts Ngatapa in third spot, six points behind OBM, who sealed second with a hard-fought 26-10 victory over Waikohu at Te Karaka.
Ngatapa and YMP, who defeated Pirates 52-26 at the Rectory, meet on Saturday with third and fourth places still up for grabs.
A Larsawn Ngatapa win would pit them against Enterprise Cars OBM, leaving Woodbank HSOB to take on Farmvets YMP. Should YMP win on Saturday and deny Ngatapa a bonus point, the Magpies would meet OBM.
Ngatapa coach Will Faulks was initially at a loss to explain the seven-day transformation.
“We didn’t do a lot of things any differently preparing for last week to this. We actually had a couple of senior players missing today but the boys were pretty gutted after last week so they didn’t need much motivation to get up for this game.”
Although reluctant to single out individuals, Faulks said Short, openside flanker Matt Deans, hooker Hamish Forrester and Alex Meban had top games.
Meban, normally a winger, replaced injured halfback Cameron Rowden with 20 minutes to play and Ngatapa trailing 24-16. He was part of a move that led to blindside flanker Sione Ngatu scoring a try that closed the gap to two points.
Woodbank respondWoodbank HSOB, who dominated the second half, responded with a penalty to Scott Leighton and looked to have done enough to pick up the four points with five minutes to play.
Ngatapa refused to give in and came close to scoring in the right-wing corner, only to be denied by committed HSOB defence. This resulted in a a HSOB scrum feed five metres from their line.
“Win the ball, retain possession and it’s all over,” one HSOB supporter said.
HSOB achieved the first goal but when No.8 Siosiua Moala tried to run the ball out of defence he was tackled and the ball was turned over and went quickly through the hands to Short, who showed great determination to get across the line.
It was unfortunate for Moala, who came on after 55 minutes and scored a marvellous try with his first touch of the ball. First- five-eighth Corey Reihana kicked the conversion to level the scores at 16-16.
Five minutes later, Moala produced the play of the game to set up a try for replacement hooker Kolo Fonohema.
Moala received the ball 40m from the tryline and, running with the strength of a forward and the twinkling toes of a back, he beat four defenders, then passed to blindside flanker Viliami Kavai, who did exceptionally well to pass infield for Fonohema to score.
Reihana iced the cake with a magnificent sideline conversion against the wind to make it 24-16.
“The boys showed a lot of character over that last 10 minutes,” Faulks said. “Now we’ve got to keep the momentum going.”
Ngatapa started well and hit the front through a try to left-winger Seddon Smith after eight minutes.
Playing into the wind, Ngatapa continued to look the better team but HSOB levelled it seven minutes later when Kavai intercepted and raced 70m to dot down between the posts.
With defences on top, it wasn’t until the 35th minute that Short finished off a strong run by Ngatu. First five-eighth Chris Richardson, who had converted Smith’s six-pointer, added another two to give Ngatapa a 16-8 lead at the break.