The midfield pairing of Wella Hauraki and Ryan Tongia made deep inroads into Tamatea's defence in the first half. Photo / Dave Murdoch
The midfield pairing of Wella Hauraki and Ryan Tongia made deep inroads into Tamatea's defence in the first half. Photo / Dave Murdoch
Aotea at home and determined to entertain a large crowd as well as win its first Premier game certainly looked at halftime like they would prevail, leading 19-5 at the break.
Aotea attacked from the outset, the forwards aggressive with big Bailey Johnston in the thick of the drives. Givengreat front-foot ball, the Aotea backs received good service from halfback Turanga Rewiti and first five Hoeara Stephenson distributed the ball intelligently giving the midfield of Wella Hauraki and Ryan Tongia plenty of opportunities to work their magic.
This resulted in a great try to Tongia after a scything run.
Winning the breakdown in the first half set the backs alight. Photo / Dave Murdoch
In possibly a sign of things to come, Tamatea showed they weren't there to make up the numbers and drove deep, feeding wide to even the score at 5-5.
Aotea was playing a very fast, attacking game, taking quick tap penalties which yielded two converted tries to lift them to 19-5 as the first half ended. But the decision not to shoot for a goal at halftime turned out to be costly.
With a strong westerly cross-wind slightly favouring Tamatea in the second half and one player in the sin-bin, Aotea was put under pressure and Tamatea scored out wide to narrow the gap.
Aotea continued to take fast-taps from penalties and this put Sam Jones over in the corner to restore the margin, but the Tamatea forwards started to apply the pressure, driving deep and scoring twice under the posts to level the scores at 24-24.
It could have gone either way as the teams strove to break the deadlock. Stephenson had a chance wide out with three minutes to go, but failed to land a penalty into the strong wind and, as the clock showed time up, a penalty to Tamatea in the final seconds of the match broke Aotea's hearts, giving its opponents the 27-24 victory.
