Hawke's Bay flying high in Division Two final

When Rico Gear announced his shift to Nelson Bays last year, most of us sniggered, pointed to the side-door entry to the Crusaders and confidently predicted that Nelson Bays had about as much chance of seeing Gear in action as Winston Peters had of becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs.

While Peters has yet to reveal form, the Rico Gear show is moving from height to height. In a match which augured well for both sides' hopes in the top division next season, Gear sparked a three-try first half, scoring two himself, which had unbeaten Hawke's Bay gasping.

Nelson backs will likely form the nucleus of the Tasman backline next year but, while Gear won the first half, the Hawke's Bay forwards won the match in a second-half display that will give them some first-division anticipation next season.

That Nelson did not lead by more in the first half was down to some ordinary kicking by Tim Taylor, their English import first five-eighths, who has been such a strength for them over the past two seasons. Taylor missed a few kicks that he would normally convert and presented Hawke's Bay with their try when lingering too long over a clearance which was charged down.

But Hawke's Bay have been a durable and disciplined side and their first division hopes will be brighter if they bring to matches the stubborn forward effort that turned this match around. Their forwards competed harder, got more of a roll on in the rucks and mauls and began to negate the Nelson Bays dashers like Gear and the excellent Lucky Mulipola.

The game started at a cracking pace with a piece of Gear magic - finger-tipping on a long pass after a break by big winger Mulipola and then backing up perfectly for the final pass when the receiver was taken in the last tackle.

Hawke's Bay struck back instantly with a try to New Zealand sevens representative Tafai Ioasa, playing well at openside flanker, who charged down Tim Taylor's kick when it seemed he had ample time to clear.

But, at 5-5, Nelson Bays came straight back when Mulipola - the other Nelson star of the half - broke through some ordinary tackling after an inside pass to score under the bar. Taylor goaled this time but missed an easy penalty not long after and Nelson then descended into some untidy play and scrappy kicking which slowly dragged Hawke's Bay back into the game.

It took until five minutes from the end of the half for Mulipola to capitalise on an aimless Hawke's Bay kick and his pass found Gear, who did fullback Donovan Nepia on the outside in a 50m run to score in the corner for a 17-8 lead at halftime.

Nepia, however, had been kicking his goals and did so again after a glorious runaway try to big loose forward Bryn Evans. A Nelson move broke down horribly 60m out, Evans - also a sevens player - kicked ahead, gathered and outpaced Nelson loose forwards Mark Bright and Zane Winslade to score.

Taylor's one-from-four kicking statistics looked even more wasteful when Hawke's Bay's forwards rumbled up to and over the line from a rolling maul, with referee Paul Honiss' X-ray vision awarding the try to hooker Hika Elliot.

The man whose name he carries, former All Black hooker Hika Reid, remains the only hooker immortalised in iambic pentameter (Hika The Hooker From Ngongotaha) and Elliot's try was much more dark, satanic mauls (with apologies to William Blake).

But it gave the lead to Hawke's Bay, 20-17, for the first time in the match and gave some much-needed juice to the Bay pack.

And so the pattern of the second half became Nelson trying to fire the ball wide to make ground, spilling it more often than not, and Hawke's Bay grinding them back into their own half and making probing counter-attacks close to the rucks.

As the game grew older, the influence of Ioasa became more pronounced and it was from his bust, followed up by midfielder Davis Norman, that Hawke's Bay got the big forwards squeezing towards the Nelson line.

No try was awarded this time but the series of scrums and battering at the Nelson line was match-winning stuff, paving the way for little halfback Chad Shepherd to shoot round the scrum to score the pivotal try.

There was time only for more Bay battering, through scrums and pick-and-drive recycled ball, and an Ioasa thrust was finished by Davis after a lucky bounce.

For Hawke's Bay, front-rowers Elliot and Clint Newland, lock Lua Lokotui, Evans, Ioasa and hard-working captain Mutu Ngarimu clinched the game up front - but the good news was that both sides will have first division rugby next season.

Hawke's Bay 32

(T. Ioasa, B. Evans, H. Elliot, C. Shepherd, D. Norman tries; D. Nepia pen, 2 cons).

Nelson Bays 17

(R. Gear 2, L. Mulipola tries; T. Taylor con).


- HERALD ON SUNDAY