Rugby: Hosts give East a fright

Powerful No 8 Rakatoa Morris-Wallace was again prominent for Wairoa today. Photo/Wairoa Star

Hosts Wairoa produced their best performance to date at the Ross Shield tournament today before losing 17-12 to Hastings East.

"I was proud of the team. Hopefully we can beat Central tomorrow and force a three-way tie for the Life Members' Salver for the best country team," Wairoa coach Sid Ropitini said.

"We would probably lose on countback but it would still be great for the town," he added.

Halfback Gus Brickel and No Rakatoa Morris-Wallace scored Wairoa's tries and first five-eighth TK Taylor kicked a conversion. East manager Mark Solomon said several of his troops were struggling with a vomiting bug and they had to dig deep for the win after the score was 5-all at halftime.

Centre Chance Katene, lock Jonah Cooper and No 8 Divaan Singh scored East's tries and winger Vaydah Matchitt kicked a conversion.

Napier ran in six tries during their 38-7 win against Dannevirke who lost the services of captain and No 8 George Prouting with a broken arm and fullback Jamie Monaghan with a jaw injury. Under those circumstances Dannevirke did well to restrict the damage in the second half after trailing 26-7 at the interval.

Prop Benjamin Olsen scored Dannevirke's try and lock Fergus Prouting slotted the conversion. Halfback Noah O'Brien, winger Jesse Beals, second five-eighth Iraia Roberts, first five-eighth Oliver Beale, winger Kendall Bush and centre Tyrese Ngarangione-Wicks scored Napier's tries. Beale converted three of them and fullback Jacob Cotter one.

Hastings West, who shared the Ross Shield with Napier last year, are tipped to maintain their unbeaten run when they take on Dannevirke tomorrow and retain the Ross Shield at the 117th edition of the Wattie's-sponsored event. Today Hastings West beat Central 57-0.

Central assistant manager Don Withers said his troops made a slow start and were a bit shell-shocked by the occasion. Prop Te Toa Hema was again gutsy in the Central pack and centre Diego Maraki-Pene and fullback Wills Baines were busy defenders.

West captain and centre Kaden Makea scored five tries to take his tally for the week to 15. Flanker William Bennett, prop Joseph JJ Lilo-Iosefo, hooker and player-of-the-match Mikey Brown and winger Vander Taylor scored West's other tries and first five-eighth Noah Rogers kicked six conversions.