A lack of intensity and silly handling errors denied the Wanganui Collegiate School 1st XV a chance to topple a far more controlled St Paul's Collegiate from Hamilton yesterday.
St Paul's won the match 22-10 in what was Collegiate's first home game in the Central North Island Secondary Schools rugby championship. The loss came just a week after Collegiate lost its first match 26-10 against Frances Douglas Memorial College, while yesterday's victory gave St Paul's its second win on end after it dispatched Rathkeale College 27-15 last week.
The Wanganui side started well and was straight on attack from the kick-off and a subsequent knock-on by St Paul's allowed Collegiate the scrum feed on the 22-metre line. Solid defence from the Hamilton lads, however, denied Wanganui putting early points on the board.
A breakaway run from St Paul's centre Aaron Crow was ended when he was run down and tackled before a silly ruck infringement gave the visitors a penalty neatly put away by St Paul's first-five Kip Fawcett, son of former All Black Kit Fawcett. Another penalty just minutes later was missed.
The Collegiate game plan appeared to go out the window as they struggled to get possession and what ball they did hold was quickly given back through inaccurate and untimely kicking.
A Collegiate penalty, kicked by second-five Stephen Perofeta, levelled the score with 10 minutes of the first half to go.
But just five minutes from the break St Paul's crossed the Collegiate line with the subsequent Fawcett conversion pushing the score out to 10-3.
Collegiate continued into the second half with fumbled ball and silly infringements allowing St Paul's to dominate possession. Hard work from the visitors finally paid dividends 10 minutes into the second spell with a try from fullback Ollie Paine and converted by Fawcett.
Fawcett was again in the frame 10 minutes later.
His run through the middle carved up the Collegiate defence allowing his teammate Perofeta to slide through for a well-earned try. However, he missed what was really a sitter of a conversion. The score was suddenly 22-3 to St Paul's.
Collegiate then appeared to gel and a fine try by halfback Caleb Bensemann, converted by Perofeta put them back in the game with just over 10 minutes to go. Minutes later an excellent individual run down the sideline by openside flanker Te Atuarere Albert looked likely to yield points, but was denied through solid defence from the visitors.
St Paul's coach Andrew Gibbs said he knew it would be a tough game and he praised the Wanganui forwards, in particular the hard-working locks, for their tireless toil.
"I guess the difference was our accuracy within the 22m. I think our boys managed to stay focused and keep to the game plan, but Wanganui did play well," Gibbs said.
Collegiate coach Guy Lennox, however, was mystified.
"I don't know why, but we had no intensity at all. It was a well deserved win by St Paul's, but then again it's hard to do much when we only had 20 per cent of the ball and playing in our own half. The silly errors - dropped ball and penalties - didn't help. But the positive for me was that they are learning to tackle and they showed real mettle to fight back near the end," Lennox said.
Collegiate now take on Rathkeale College next week.