Wellington U19s off to winning start

The Wellington U19s have made it two from two in the 2019 Central Region Shield competition with an 82-7 win over the Hurricanes Heartland U20 team at Westpac Stadium on Friday evening.

The U19s scored 13 tries, with forward Taine Plumtree (Old Boys University) and midfielder Kienan Higgins (Northern United) both scoring hat-tricks and wing Junior Time-Taotua (Northern United) scoring two tries. They led 28-7 at halftime.

This follows their 28-0 win over the Manawatu counterparts last weekend in the wet, and this coming weekend they turn to face their Hawke's Bay counterparts at Jerry Collins Stadium snd victory would confirm their top seeding from the Hurricanes region for the upcoming Jock Hobbs Memorial National U19 tournament in Taupo.

In representative rugby on Saturday at Kilbirnie Park, the Wellington Centurions Development team beat the Wellington Samoans 50-29 in a Festival Cup fixture, while the Centurions U18s defeated the Wellington Samoans U18s 24-17 in a non-competiion game. .

In Palmerston North, Wellington Maori beat Manawatu Maori 69-0.

In sunny conditions on a heavy field following recent rain, Wellington Maori scored 11 tries and defended positively throughout. 

Wellington Maori dominated all areas of the contest and scored several long-range tries, following the first to second five-eighth Jarrod Adams, on the shoulder of first five-eighth Glen Walters.

Wellington broke out from the next kick-off, resulting in a kick and chase try to halfback Sheridan Rangihuna. Rangihuna scored his second try from a dart at the chalk fro close-range and converted their third try to make it 21-0. Walters and Glen-Bradbrook both got on the scoresheet before halftime and it was 33-0 at the turnaround. 

Wellington Maori sealed the match with two more tries after the interval, to loose forwards Jordan Gillies and William Rua to move ahead 47-0.

The home team competed for the next 20 minutes of the match but Wellington's line was never in danger of being threatened. 

With about 15 minutes to play, Wellington Maori counter-attacked and scored the first of two quickfire tries. Flanker Matt Jacobs took a quick tap penalty and waltzed through after a breakout up the left side by replacement wing Adam Clark. From the kick-off, Wellington burst through again and replacement halfback Declan Hay scored in the corner to make it 59-0.They scored another two tries to end the contest in style, with centre McCarthy and first-five-eighth Walters scoring the last two tries.

There were two club rugby semi-finals on Saturday in the Premier Reserve Division 2 grade.

In these, the Upper Hutt Rams J8s beat the MSP Internationals 49-14 and the Paremata-Plimmerton Punters defeated the Old Boys University Pink Ginners 22-20 in a thriller that saw OBU score a late try but miss both the conversion and a subseqent penalty to win on fulltime. Next week’s Alan Seerup Cup final will be between the Upper Hutt Rams and Paremata-Plimmerton sides.

In college rugby on Saturday, both Wellington's Boys First XVs in action missed out in their Hurricanes semi-finals, 

St Pat’s Silverstream lost 37-10 to Hastings Boys’ High School in Hastings, while recent Wellingtonchampions Scots College were run down by Palmerston North Boys’ High School in a 22-24 loss at Jerry Collins Stadium.

Both schools were in their matches at halftime. Silverstream held Hastings to 10-10 at the intervval before falling away, while Scots College raced to a 17-0 lead early in the game, which they held until halftime, only to be overtaken in the second half.

Palmerston BHS North came back to take a 21-17 lead, before Scots scored their only second half try to lead 22-21. But the visitors won with a late penalty. Palmerston North BHS and Hastings BHS will contest the Hurricanes First XV final. 

In the co-ed Cup semi-final, Aotea College beat Kapiti College 29-7 and they will play Feilding High School in their final, while St Mary’s College will take on Manukura for the Rex Kerr Cup who beat Hastings’ Girls’ High School 37-8 during the week.

Aotea and St Mary’s Colleges will be joined in next weekend’s Hurricanes school finals by Hutt International Boys’ School who will play for the inaugural Life Members Cup against Lindisfarne College (Hawkes Bay) in the Development boys' competition