Pirongia Rugby and Sports Club Seniors Match Reports

Match reports:

 

2/6/2009 Mountain Men Grind Out Victory in the Mud

 

Winter arrived with a hard blast at Pirongia on Saturday and it was conditions the Pirongia Mountain Men reveled in. As the rain poured down and the field turned to mud the powerful PGG Wrightson Pirongia pack exerted more and more control over their Lemington counterparts and gained the upper hand to guide their team to a hard fought victory.

Both teams started evenly but it was Pirongias intelligent play to keep their opposition pinned in their own quarter with a great tactical kicking game from Peta Taukiri that created the pressure that led to Lemington mistakes, and points. From a penalty 15m out from the Lemington goal line, out of retirement veteran halfback, Chris Gibson, took a quick tap and fed the ball to man mountain, Lee Bennett, who dragged 4 players across the line with him to give Pirongia a 5-0 advantage. Despite more attacking Pirongia were not able to extend their lead further before halftime.

With Gibson taking control of his forward pack and barking out the orders to all and sundry, Pirongia surged back into the Lemington quarter and set up camp for the second half. Under the day & age of the new rules, a pushover try seemed a distant memory. However with power props John Burnside & Ben Coutts dominating their opposites the Pirongia scrum rolled over the top of their Lemington opposites to give no.8 Ryan Bardsley the pushover try. Workhorse lock Dave Twaddle was player of the day, just ahead of  late callup Chris Reymer.

Lemington did breakout for a last minute try to close the gap to a final score of 10-5.

FIL Pirongia B’ fought out a tough 17-7 loss.

 

 

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