Sat 23 June saw the 2nd bus trip of the year roll round and the boys hit the road to play Balfour Lumsden at Lumsden. With 12 squad members being unavailable due to injury, illness, playing for the prems and work a smaller squad than usual consisting of 13 forwards and 5 backs made the trip to Northern Southland. Player coaches are reasonably common in Div 2 with Tokanui, Mossburn and Central Pirates (that I know of) having coaches that pull on the boots on when needed. Luckily the Div2 integrated coaching/management system came to the fore with both Regan and Dennis starting the game and management taking the 3rd spot on the bench behind Charlie and Sam. Balfour Lumsden were feeling the pinch number wise as well so a fair match up of 18 per side faced off. B-L scored first from a pick and go close to the line. Midway thru the first half Regan Johns came in from fullback to score a try for POB from the base of a ruck. Both sides had props kicking the extras and predictably neither of these conversions went over. Just prior to the half time break B-L earned a penalty in front of the posts however they turned down the easy points and opted to go for a 5 pointer from a couple of scrums. Good scrummaging and defense held B-L out with 5 all being the half time score. A feature of the first half was some scorching runs from Hosea Shrimtpon who was filling in on the left wing. The second 1/2 started the same as the first with the conditions making the game a stop/start affair however both teams did their best to play positive footy and possession/territory was evenly shared. Ben Erskine scored a try early in the 2nd half but I have no idea what the build-up to that was. 10 minutes out from fulltime a series of rucks close to the line saw Shrimpy give up his wing position to join the ruck leaving Johnsy to take the glory in the corner. Tuks had a crack at converting both tries from wide out, he was striking the ball nicely but was unsuccessful so 15 - 5 to POB with 10 minutes to go. B-L lifted their game in the last 10 and the 40 minutes of defensive practice from the game against Woodlands certainly paid off with B-L only being able to score & convert in the last minute to make the final score 15-12. Conditions were wet and cold throughout the game but the track held up pretty well. All in all an old school game of rugby with only two reserves used and a lot of the guys playing out of position. The win was a due to a great team effort with some excellent tacking being made by loose forwards Mike Keenan and Cody Gavan. The aftermatch was enjoyable with B-L providing a meal which helped the boys warm up abit. Player of the day was Corbin Winiata with Charlie Davis earning the green jacket after turning up at clubrooms straight from work wearing his chefs uniform. Rolly was also a strong candidate for the green jacket after slipping over on to his arse in front of both teams while making a warm up kick in his dance shoes. After the ceremonies were completed at B-L the boys hit the bus and scooted over to Mossburn to watch the All Blacks test at the Railway Hotel. The Cs joined us on their way back from their game in Te Anau so the pub was literally a sea of blue with the Cs having a Canadian tuxedo theme for their bus trip. Johnsy also stood out in his powder blue Old Boys dress jersey. All in all a good weekend for the club with the Prems getting a much needed win (11 - 6) up in Gore v the Barbarians, Div 2 getting home 15 -12, the Cs winning 31 nil, and the under 18s backing up last weeks hard earned win over SBHS 2nd XV with a 26 nil victory against Riverton. Big weekend coming up at the club this weekend with the all schoolboy teams playing in the morning at the club and the U18s, Cs, Div2 & Prems all playing at home in the afternoon. |
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In all the whole team played well with special mention to Cullen McLeod for his work in the tight stuff & to our halfback Flynn Jackson who ran the show nicely. The guys clocked up big score but still let Waikiwi in for a well deserved try.
Player of the day – Cullen ‘Crusher’ McLeod SPONSORS DAY
Team - Saturday is sponsors day at the club, with 4 home games and the 2nd Test live from CHCH. So dress in black to support the ABs and enjoy a good night in the club. Forde Auto Services Prems vs Blues, 3pm Forklift NZ Div 2's vs Woodlands, 3pm Back 9 Design C's vs Edendale, 2pm Leigh Murray Motor Co u18s vs SBHS 2nd XV, 1:15pm ABs 7:30pm, Courtesy Coach available before and after test, gold coin donation. Check out the Club website www.pobrugby.com and support the following sponsors: Back9design Phil & Allison Robinson Burgess Masonry Daryl Burgess Central Southland Logging Chris & Donna Diack Cruickshank Pryde John Pringle Diacks Nurseries Ewan & Greg Diack Forde Auto Services Peter & Liz Forde Forklift NZ Wayne McCulloch Harcourts Michael Griffin Harvey Tanks Shayne & Katherine Harvey Hunt Computers Wayne & Donna Hunt ILT & ILT Foundation Leigh Murray Motor Co Leigh Murray Mainland Meats Tim & Matt Smellie Malloch McClean Jeremy & Lindsay McClean McCain Michael Leach McCulloch & Partners Craig Munro Meikle Family Allan Meikle Mend-a-bath Ian & Heather Smith Placemakers Alister Rance Pneumatic Contractors Dean Harvey Professionals Tim Frampton Road Safety Southland Rothbury Insurance Gareth Jennings Southern Cad Services Jo Russel Southern Ocean Safety Steven & Kirstin Sargeant Southland Vehicle Sales Garry Tippett & The Murrells Speedy Signs Dylan Meehan & Carla Burgess Tay + Elles Night n Day Andrew Nicol Thayer Todd Valuations Regan Johns On Saturday 9th the under 9 Blue team {Smurfs} played Blues at CPT 5.
The guys {Sorry Lucy} ran out comfortable winners in the end. The game itself was a very physical encounter with the coach pleased with the controlled aggression the team showed.Also pleasing was the way the team started to gel. Blues gave us a run for our money in the tight stuff but had no answer out wide with the likes of Sam McDonald;Jack Butler;Jacob Kura & Daniel Bremner using their pace to outflank the Blues defenders.It was good to have Daniel back & it showed last week against Marist how much we missed him. The captain for the day was Sean Dockerty who along with Cullen McLeod have made big improvements every game much to the coaches delight. Coach John Butler was also happy with the way Lachie Nimmo;Lucy Hall & Jacob Mika played stating they are producing abit of mongrel into their game.Also to mention was the support play of Josh McDonough who was able to be a vital link to help the team to score out wide.All in John is impressed with the team & hope they can keep improving each game. Player of the day –Slamming Sam McDonald The POB U9 black team had a convincing win on Saturday by 75 to 5 over Waikiwi. 3 tries each to Jayden Goble, Jemiour Collins, Neha Kane & Mathew Bragg who got player of the day for the first ever time with some big runs and with his size he was hard to pull down. Good games from Turtle who provided good support and was excellent at the breakdown and Joel Morgan who had a lot of runs and was hard to stop but still looking for that first try.
Hard to gauge how good the team is against much weaker sides but the support play, work and the breakdowns and talking was excellent. Need to work on a bit more passing and cleaning out at the breakdown but the boys are happy and everyone gets plenty of rugby now that we have 2 teams. A couple of tough games over the last couple of weekends.
The first game was against Marist green on their home ground. A good start saw POB get out to a 2 try lead however the next 3 tries went to Marist who played to their strengths with good straight seeing Connal Breen and Ed Laidlaw crash over for tries. The 2nd half opened with POB chasing a couple of kicks down into Marist territory. The boys got their running game going and scored twice to see make the final score 5 - 3 to POB. Player of the day was Callum Nimmo with Callan Jones also standing out up front. Thursday before Queens Birthday weekend saw a night game against Star at POB As usual Star rolled up with team that was huge. A good sized crowd on the try line was treated to a game that saw both sides get stuck into each other in the mud. Good tackling in the backs by the midfield pairing of Louie Patterson and Ethan Hair was matched up front by the efforts of Callum Robertson, Luke Harvey and Callan Jones. POB took a 3 try lead into the last 5 minutes however 2 quick tries by Star closed things up and supporters were relieved when the ref blew for full time when Star were attacking the POB line. Final score 6 - 5. Another good team effort saw the boys get home late, a post game debrief identified a lack of 1/2 time oranges as a factor in Star finishing strongly. Player of the day was Josh Murrell. As always a game the boys look forward to, some banter on the sideline prior to kickoff saw a jug of beer placed on the result as there were family connections on both teams. A tough first half with good defence on both sides saw a try to Sam McDonald from broken play 5 minutes before halftime. On the stroke of halftime Lachie Nimmo latched onto a loose pass at halfway and took off towards the tryline with nobody in front of him. Unfortunately he appears to have his fathers speed and was cut down by the chasing defence and the half time score remained one nil.
The second half started out the same as the first with defence and good chasing resulting in a good even game. Tries were exchanged by both sides throughout the half and as the final few minutes wound down the score was 3 - 2 to POB, Phil McDonald could almost taste the free jug of beer he was going to get from his brother in law. Great play by POB saw them swing onto attack and chase a loose ball thru to the Marist tryline. POB almost scored to make the game safe however some good clean up work and counter attacking saw Marist score at the other end. Rugby was the winner on the day with the final score being 3 all. Jake Kura (sporting a new haircut), Flynn Jackson, Sam McDonald & Jacob Mika all played well. Player of the day was Sean Docherty. |
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June 2017
POB Rugby ClubPirates RFC and Oldboys RFC amalgamated to form Eastern Hawks in 2001. In 2011 The name was changed back to incorporate and show the respect towards the history of these two great clubs. Categories
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