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.

On Saturday 23rd June the Blue team played Woodlands at the club.There was a shower just before kick off but the ground was in good condition. We had Lucy Hall away for the weekend & with the Black team playing at CPT Park we called in Ben Jennings from the under 10s to make up numbers. Also Seth Ryder from the Black team turned up for us.

  Special thanks to the  Woodlands coach Brett Wylie for allowing both teams to play everybody. I wish some other teams were as  easy  to work with. No point in having kids standing on the sideline in those weather conditions.

The game itself turned out to be a cracker with both teams playing positive rugby. With some beautiful team tries being scored the boys were enjoying their footy. Once again Jacob Mika stood out with his aggressive style of play. The guys had excellent passing between them with Jacob Kura; Flynn Jackson; Josh McDonough; Seth Ryder; Daniel Bremner ;Ben Jennings & Sam McDonald linking up with probably our most dangerous runner on the day Lachie Nimmo. Speaking of Sammy he was unlucky to have 2 tries disallowed due to knocking the ball on over the tryline. 1 of the highlights for the coach was Sean Dockerty nearly scoring his 1st try from a scrum move. Keep putting the hard yards in Seano it’s not far away.The team was well led by Cullen McLeod.With the game getting away from Woodlands we gave them Jack Butler who went on to score for them as well as setting up another try  as well. He had a good game for them & was a bloody nuisance for us; which made the coach happy.

Overall the team is ticking along quite nicely & with some improvements to be made we should be more than a match for some of the bigger teams.

Player of the day – Lightening Lachie Nimmo

Saturday out at centrepoint #6 resembled the Russian front due to a good overnight frost. After a quick warm up the boys got into it with neither team being as worried about the frost as the parents were. With ground #6
sheltered from the sun by a large hedge the sun was slow to creep across the ground and players being subbed were keen to get their hands on the sideline hot water bottle.

POB took a lead into half time however Blues started off well in the 2nd half by scoring 2 quick tries and dominating territory. After the slow start POB got their running game going and ended up winning 9 tries to 2. The best of Toby Milne's 4 tries was one he in ran in from the back of a scrum at halfway (it must be great having no flankers on a scrum). Another try of note was Ethan Hair finishing off a hard running try with a dive into thefrostiest corner of the ground.  

Player of the day was Jack Walker.

On Saturday 16th the Under 9 Blue team played Waikiwi on their clubday at Waikiwi rugby grounds
The conditions were good with a frost settling in overnight. Thank god for our Under 8s for softening up the ground for us.  Speaking of the Under 8s; with our Black team playing Marist at Centrepoint  we had to get a ring-in from their team. The ring-in was Jumping Jack O’Connell & I would like to thank Joe & Victoria for letting us unleash Jack onto the Waikiwi boys.

The pre-game warm-up went well & I felt the guys would be fizzing when the game started.Sure enough Waikiwi kicked off with Jack Butler catching the ball & running away to score in the corner from the 1st play.The game ended up getting away from Waikiwi with P.O.Bs scoring some beautiful team tries. But credit where credits due Waikiwi never gave up & gave us a run for our money. The guys knew they had a game on their hands.
 Probably the try of the game was scored by Lachie Nimmo who left his Dad’s pace at home & brought his Mum’s instead which saw him dot down after the ball had moved through several sets of hands.