East Coast and Greytown maintained their unbeaten records when the third series of matches in the Wairarapa-Bush Rugby Union's Chris Kapene Memorial Cup were played on Saturday but in rather different circumstances.
Whereas Greytown had a day off when Puketoi defaulted to them after findingtheir playing resources shattered by a mix of injuries and player unavailability, East Coast had to stave off a gutsy challenge from defending Kapene Cup champions Pioneer in the feature match at Memorial Park, and did so by scoring three tries to one and winning 22-10.
The match provided an entertaining spectacle with both teams, as expected, prepared to move the ball around and, in the end, it was East Coast's better finishing which gave them the victory.
Tom Bowie, Zeb Aporo and Mick Morison scored tries for East Coast while Aporo dropped a goal and Nick Olson and AJ Manley kicked one conversion apiece. Sean Robinson scored the sole Pioneer try, converted by Himiona Haira, and Joe Thompson landed one penalty.
Eketahuna caused a minor upset when they defeated Martinborough 16-15 in an enthralling match at Eketahuna. Dan Griffin scored both Eketahuna tries and Tom Meuli kicked two penalties. Adam Marshall and Daniel George scored tries for Martinborough and Tipine Haira kicked one conversion and one penalty.
Carterton ran in four tries in beating Bush Sports 25-10 at Carterton. Try-scorers for Carterton were Daniel Nicho, Danny Brown, John McFadzean and Zac Reiri, with Danny Brown adding one penalty and Daryl Pickering one conversion. Matt Walker and Jack Buckley scored tries for Bush Sports.
Biggest win of the day came at Gladstone where the home team registered six converted tries in their 48-5 defeat of Marist. Andrew Patrick, Cameron Hayton, John Stevenson, Richard Puddy, Shaun Loader and Thomas Murray scored the Gladstone tries, all converted by Hayton, who also kicked two penalty goals. Dan Gleeson was Marist's try-scorer.
