Hawke's Bay v Ngāti Porou East Coast (RS)
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FT: Magpies 93 - 5 Ngāti Porou East Coast
Some awesome tries scored in this game. I know it's only East Coast, but passes still have to stick. I loved that try from Pouri Rakete-Stones after Gareth Evans made that break, offloaded to Jonah Lowe, who offloaded in the tackle to Rakete-Stones, who then showed he has good speed for a big man.
Our starting locks were great, Gareth Evans looks very, very keen, Enari - as said earlier in the thread - looking good, Tuitavuki being a pest for the opposition on the left wing. While McClutchie forgot to put on his goal kicking boots in the first half, he had a very good game; good game management and - apart from one missed touch finder - a good kicking game. Kereru-Symes's line-out throwing was excellent and shows he's really formed in the Dixon mould with his line-out mauls.
I was a bit disappointed that Dennis Tapusoa didn't get to score a try at the end. If I wanted one man to score on debut, it's him (for those not in the know: his young daughter passed away, last month).
One more preseason game to go, next week. IIRC against Counties Manukau.
Can't say much about the NPEC players, as I don't know know them, apart from one. Former Magpies hooker Jorian Tangaere scored the only try for the East Coasters. Still a great player, who strangely enough hung up his boots a few years ago due to continuing eye problems (he risked getting blind if he continued playing), but laced up the boots again last year, when he debuted for East Coast after a season for Clive.
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@nepia said in Hawke's Bay v Ngāti Porou East Coast (RS):
@daffy-jaffy said in Hawke's Bay v Ngāti Porou East Coast (RS):
@nepia Its live on sky 52 now!
Even though my TV has decided my Apple TV is Sky NZ (it's very strange), we don't actually get Sky in Oz.
If I could watch it on Sky I'd be at the ground.
Youda thunk Stan would pick up all rugby that Sky broadcasts. Not that I want to watch but just scrolled through and couldn't find it, but as you say Otago Spirit v Auckland Storm.
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Viewing the replay, it reminded me that Higgins has a bit of Buckman about his play as well as his look. If we need a starting 12, at this stage I'd still have Toala or Fomai ahead of him, but shows some promise
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@stockcar86 He stepped nicely off his left foot a couple of times in the first half to easily get past his opponent and there was a very nice flick on of the ball when under pressure to create space for the player outside him later on. I agree with you, he shows promise but you have to take into consideration the amateur level of the opposition, particularly their ability to fall off tackles when tiredness set in. In addition our guys would probably have had at least 80% of possession. A clear case of professionals v amateurs in this case.
I would have expected the Shield Defenders to utterly slaughter the challengers given the difference in personnel available to each team but that did not really happen. I know that might not make sense when 93 points were raked up but I got the impression that the Magpies were holding an awful lot back that they might not have wanted video analysists of upcoming opponents to see. For example I would have expected the scrum to shunt the Coast backwards big time every scrum (they did not) and to swing the ball wide showing off Harlem Globetrotter like plays way more than they did. We must also consider that it was nowhere near the complete Bunnings Cup team on the field at the same time at any stage so Messrs Ozich and Syms were keeping things under their hats to a certain degree.
