Rowe rewarded for stellar effort

The New Zealand Heartland XV made it two wins from two games on Saturday and for their four Steelform Wanganui players it was a chance to grasp at least one representative trophy in 2013.

The side's 25-12 win over the New Zealand Marist XV at Timaru's Alpine Energy Stadium made them the inaugural holders of the Ian MacRae Cup named after the current NZRU president.

Scoring three tries, the Heartland side consolidated on their 18-0 lead at halftime for captain Peter Rowe to be the first to be presented with the trophy, to go with being voted by the Marist team as the player of the match.

"It was certainly good to get a win. There's a strong rivalry developing there with Marist," said team manager Chris Back.

The gameplan had been to use the width of the park to keep the ball away from the big Marist forwards, as Heartland's winger Dwayne Burrows (Mid Canterbury), centre TK Moeke (East Coast) and No8 Jon Dampney (Mid Canterbury) scored their five-pointers.

First-five Tim Priest (West Coast) added two conversions and two penalties, including one 50m effort.

As well as Rowe, Nick Cranston was again at lock while prop Shaun McDonough and loose forward Lasa Ulukuta both came off the bench for the final quarter.

Back said captain Rowe had another massive match to go with his effort the previous Tuesday against NZ Defence Force when he completed 29 of 33 tackles.

"A huge work-rate in both games. You get these guys in an environment where they can flourish, and it just goes to show you."

Unfortunately, the locals had less presence than planned as Wanganui Marist's Bradley Graham had been selected for the Marist team, but found himself missing out on the day.

"There was a communication issue. [Marist] thought we were playing with five props under the international rules but domestically it's 22 [players]," said Back.

"They had 23 players, and Brad was the 23rd."