Rugby
A shortage of players has led to Puketoi defaulting their Chris Kapene Memorial Cup premier division rugby match tomorrow.
Puketoi, which have been on the end of hefty defeats in their first two games, were to play Greytown at Pongaroa but a spate of injuries has forced them to concede the points to last year's Tui Cup champions.
Coach Graeme Cheetham said Puketoi had a squad of 20 players leading into the season opener but those numbers had been quite drastically reduced because of the injury problems and a decision had been taken to default to Greytown in the hope the situation would be rectified by the following weekend.
"Right now this [the default] is a oncer. We fully intend to be back in seven days time," Cheetham said.
A brief preview of premier division games being played tomorrow is:
Pioneer v East Coast, Memorial Park at 2.30pm (referee D Adams; assistants, G Hall and B Stewart): Pioneer literally looked full of running when they beat a brave Eketahuna last weekend and, with East Coast also at their best when they are moving the ball around, an entertaining 80 minutes is in store. Two of the most innovative playmakers in the region, Hoani Peacock (Pioneer) and Zeb Aporo (East Coast), will be wearing the No 10 jerseys and whoever of them has the greater opportunity to call the tune tactically will very probably be on the winning side. Prediction: East Coast by 7.
Eketahuna v Martinborough, Eketahuna at 2.30pm (C Jefferies; P Thompson and G McKeown): Martinborough will start favourites after their sound start to the season and, with their impressive mix of rugged forwards and pacy backs. they will certainly take some heading off. Don't entirely discount Eketahuna, though. They showed plenty of tenacity against Pioneer and a repeat of that effort would see them go close. Prediction: Martinborough by 6.
Carterton v Bush Sports, Carterton at 2.30pm (S O'Gorman; G Moorcock and T Roseingrave): Bush Sports had the misfortune to lose one of their star forwards, Hamish Walker, to injury last weekend and his lineout and ball-running skills will be sorely missed. In Sam Marshall-Wilson, they have one of the best lineout forwards on the club scene, though, and he will clearly be their main "go to" man in that department. Carterton did share the spoils with Martinborough first game up and then lost narrowly to East Coast last weekend and that's good enough form to suggest they might just have the edge here. Prediction: Carterton by 10.
Gladstone v Marist, Gladstone at 2.30pm ( D Goodin; G Reisima and S Andrew): Gladstone are sitting third on the points table behind joint leaders Greytown and East Coast and they would only need to regularly unleash a backline spearheaded by the pacy Cameron Hayton to give Marist plenty to think about.
Having said that, Marist did show significant improvement in their big win over Puketoi last weekend and have enough flair in their own rearguard to make matters interesting. Prediction: Gladstone by 15.
Statistician Dead Ball Charlie reports that Tavita Isaac (Greytown) is now the leading try-scorer in premier division rugby with five, followed by Nathan Hunt (Martinborough) and up-and-coming East Coast flanker Ben Holmes, both with four. Top points scorer to date is Tipene Haira (Martinborough) with 33 and then come Cameron Hayton (Gladstone) 28 and Isaac 25.
The draw for senior reserve matches tomorrow is: Pioneer v East Coast, Memorial Park No 1 at 1pm (G Hall); Eketahuna v Martinborough, Eketahuna at 1pm (P Thompson); Greytown v Masterton Red Star, Greytown at 1pm (K Lochhead); Carterton v Bush Sports, Carterton at 1pm (G Moorcock); Gladstone v Marist, Gladstone at 1pm (G Reisima); Tuhirangi a bye.