Rugby: Five-try effort gives Rotoiti third successive win

Rotoiti (pictured here against Tauranga Sports earlier in the season) completed a hat-trick of league wins by defeating Opotiki on the weekend.

Rotoiti continued their fine run of form on Saturday winning 29-7 against Opotiki away at Princess St Reserve - their third victory on the bounce.

The visitors impressed in all areas of the pitch and slid over with five tries from players Manasa Bole, Zac Hohneck, Bayden Wardlaw, Shilo Cullen, Chanse Perham and conversions from Scott Thompson and Peeti Delamere.

And Rotoiti needed to perform as league strugglers Opotiki upped their game on home turf - putting up a tough defence according to Rotoiti coach Dave McLean.

"It was a very difficult match - Opotiki played on another level to what they have this season and tried to break up our play," said McLean.

"But our locks played very well and helped in the match and we had a very tight forward five who really battled for us.

"We also really took control of the set pieces in the scrum and lineout which set us up to play the ball to our backs.

"The side had been confident going into the match, despite having a few out due to injury but we were made to battle hard and I'm very happy with the bonus points win."

The victory keeps Rotoiti in seventh place in the Baywide premier after eight rounds but they have now narrowed the gap on the closest pack of three teams above them - Rangataua, Te Puke and Te Puna who all lost on the weekend.

McLean is confident Rotoiti can win their fourth game in a row at home to second-from-bottom Arataki next week, however they will be working on basic ball skills in training.

"We have the home advantage and you have to use that in this division," he said.

"But I do want the players to improve on their skills in the game. And it's ball skills that we need to work. Too many times it was dropped or misplaced passes were put in on Saturday and we don't want to lose games because of silly errors."

Meanwhile Whakarewarewa won their first back-to-back wins this season after beating Rotoiti's next opponents narrowly 25-23 at Arataki Park.

It was a fraught encounter, with Whaka having to come from 18-10 behind at half-time.

Whaka tries were scored by Eru Wano, Joe Savage and Maake Taulahi whilst Ryvbyn Vaipo crucially kicked two conversions and two penalties.

Head coach Kopae Irihei was relieved to get the win but was unhappy with the amount of missed first tackles by his side.

"We scraped a win, but I'll happily see this as a great win because we looked out of the game at half time," he said.

"It was not pretty to watch and there were so many errors. We were missing throws and our set pieces were bad. And even though we have a great forward line we were being pushed off in the scrum.

"Also we have to work on our defence because they were having about 15m run at us before the second line of defence was coming to meet them."

Next weekend Whaka host Rangataua.

Baywide Premier Results:

Mount Maunganui 56 Paroa 7, Whakatane Marist 26 Te Puna 20, Greerton Marist 26 Rangataua 25, Tauranga Sports 40 Te Puke 15, Whakarewarewa 25 Arataki 23, Rotoiti 29 Opotiki 7.

Baywide Development Results:

Mount Maunganui 25 Paroa 0, Te Puna 37 Whakatane Marist 36, Rangataua 23 Greerton Marist 13, Te Puke 22 Tauranga Sports 20, Arataki 33 Whakarewarewa 5, Rotoiti 42 Opotiki 38.

Baywide Division 1 Results:

Waikite 36 Papamoa 5, Judea 41 Te Teko, Kahukura 24 Ruatoki 20, Marist St Michael's 24 Katikati 15, Rangiuru 24 Ngongotaha 22.