Last gasp goal gives Bay share of spoils

RUGBY LEAGUE by CRAIG TIRIANA
Anthony Dawson and his Bay of Plenty teammates had every reason to feel nervous as he lined up a last second conversion attempt.
The regular Bay kicker had been having an awful time trying to add the extra points to his teammates' scores against Waikato at Rotorua's Puketawhero Park yesterday.
The 26-year-old had landed just one of five attempts when centre Jack Bond Peraua crashed over after the fulltime siren sounded, leaving Bay trailing 26-24.
Peraua crawled on his hands and knees to improve the angle.
"I hadn't kicked with that tee all year.
"I was bloody nervous - the pressure was on," Dawson said after sweetly striking the ball through the posts and locking the scores at 26-26.
Bay of Plenty outscored Waikato six tries to five but many of their efforts were finished wide out while the visitors tended to score nearer the posts and their kickers prospered, adding four conversions.
Waikato seemingly had the game in the bag with 15 minutes to go. They led 28-10 when Bartercard Cup player Moko McGrath turned the defence inside out but they didn't lock the game down.
Bay managed to get some sets together and hooker Patrick Russell started to find plenty of room around dummy half.
One such 30-metre dart saw an aggressive Dawson running the angle to score.
Waikato suffered further when secondrower Tommy Grant was sinbinned, reducing them to 12 for the last 10 minutes while Bay of Plenty swarmed home.
Russell, who consistently shone, had a hand in the next try when standoff Matthew Nairn crossed.
Dawson missed the conversion attempt but the momentum had swung to the homeside with the young Waikato side dropping ball and incurring penalties.
Bay reserve prop Gavin Porima bashed into the defence and following a quick play-the-ball centre Jason Paikea scored on the short side.
Peraua took over the kicking duties but he was wide before he had his team jumping for joy when he sliced through the defence from 15 metres to give Dawson the chance to tie the game.
"It was a pretty good comeback by the boys.
"We've got a lot to work on, we only started training this week and we've got a couple of games to go," said Dawson.
Yesterday's Bay side was not the strongest which could have been selected but neither was the Waikato side, with their top two clubs involved in Saturday's WaiCoa Bay grand final in Huntly.
Dawson, a former New Zealand Residents representative, said he hoped the Bay side would be reinforced this week with many of the Pikiao players unavailable yesterday due to their club prizegiving.
Yesterday's match was the Bay's first in 2005 and this weekend they travel to Tauranga to play Coastline while Waikato host Northland in Hamilton.
The top two teams from the Northern Districts region will then take part in the national competition.


* Scorers - Bay of Plenty 28 (Paul Daniels, Shane Kuru, Anthony Dawson, Matthew Nairn, Jason Paikea, Jack-Bond Peraua tries; Dawson 2 goals) Waikato 28 (Darren Kingi, Josh Adams, Ryan Jordan, Saulu Fifitia, Moko McGrath tries; Matthew Hohaia 3, Kingi 1 goal) Ht 10-12 Waikato.