In-form Pirongia trounce Te Rapa

• Published date: 23 June 2022
• Author: RUGBY
• Publication title: Te Awamutu Courier

They signed off the round with a convincing 22-5 win over Te Rapa at Pirongia Domain. On another winter’s day the home team started strongly, quickly getting into the patterns they had been working on

After the ball moved through several phases in the first three minutes, halfback Tom Kirkbride picked out prop Gordon Fullerton on the blindside for Fullerton to crash over, giving Pirongia an early 5-0 lead.

Te Rapa then went on the attack and dominated large parts of the first half. As Pirongia have done for most of the first-round games, their defence proved to be solid and refused to give their opposition easy points.

It wasn’t until the 31st minute when a moment of ill-discipline gave Te Rapa an attacking lineout, which they used to launch a driving maul and levelling the scores at 5-5 going into the break.

Pirongia struggled to hold on to the ball, going into contact in the wet conditions, which disrupted their attack, meaning they failed to take advantage of opportunities and build phases.

The second half started in a similar fashion with Te Rapa holding an early territorial advantage.

A number of subs lifted the energy levels when they were introduced in the first 10 minutes of the second half.

Prop Cody Mortensen and lock Shaun Coutts made several strong carries to get momentum going in the right direction.

Replacement first five-eighth Armyn Sanders added some astute kicking to the mix as well as bringing the backline more into the game.

After a series of attacks, winger Kingston Grant broke the line to put the home team into the lead 10-5.

Te Rapa were only just holding out the mountain men and it finally cracked when the ball was moved to left wing Sam Hunter, who looked like he would score, until the Te Rapa defender cleaned him up with a no-arms tackle in the corner.

After some consultation between the referee and his assistant, the Te Rapa defender was shown a yellow card and Pirongia awarded a penalty try to extend the lead to 17-5.

With Pirongia requiring another five-pointer to push for an overall third-place finish after the first round, Te Rapa would have nothing of it and with the added enthusiasm from their bench had a strong period on attack threatening to break the home side’s defences.

Only some strong tackling held them at bay until Pirongia managed to turn them around and work their way up field for Hunter to score in the final play of the day to stretch the lead out to 22-5.

One of the quiet achievers of the team, fullback Matt...