24 Jun 2019

Monday 24 June 2019

Every week the standard of competition across all the teams at the College is tough and this weekend provided some hard fought battles.

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Results

First XV
King’s 29-32 Sacred Heart 

The First XV faced a strong and motivated Sacred Heart team on Saturday in a match we knew would be tough. Sacred Heart is one of the oldest secondary schools in Auckland and they consider us their most traditional rival.  This is evident when Sacred Heart chose to play our school for their 25th, 50th, 75th and Centenary celebrations. When you add to the challenge, the Fitzpatrick/Kirkpatrick Cup, that is played for, between our two teams, you can understand why the scores between our two schools over recent years have been very close. On Saturday, there was a big, vocal crowd in attendance and the conditions were ideal for running rugby. The match came right down to the wire and when the final whistle blew, only three points separated the two teams.

Our preparation throughout the week and particularly on match day, was affected by the absence of our Strength and Conditioning Coach Scott McLaren, who, for personal reasons, was unable to join us and his absence was greatly felt by the management and particularly by the players. Despite the disruptions, we started the match really well and after two minutes, Meihana Grindlay had scored our first try after a good run down the right wing by Eric Vaafusuaga. Unfortunately, he remained on the ground after passing the ball inside to Meihana after being tackled, and was to leave the field and be replaced by Max Webb. Then only eight minutes later, the Sacred Heart forward pack did some great work to put us under immense pressure and scored a try of their own, but it was unconverted and when Aidan Morgan kicked a penalty for offside play, the scoreline was 10 – 5 to us. From a tackle made on the Sacred Heart try-scorer, Christian Pese was left on the ground in quite some pain and was also to leave the field with a sprained ankle and was replaced by Bradley Fifita. Losing two key elements in the first ten minutes, really challenges your bench and also requires the reserves to drop straight into the patterns of play and game-plan that had been instigated by the coaches and team leaders. When you add to this, the fact that our lineout leader James Brown was unavailable because of a sprained ankle, number eight Judda Turahui is still recovering from a knee injury and second five-eighth Temple Kalepo was unavailable this week because of league commitments, the strength of our depth was challenged. However, credit to our boys – we scored a second try to Chicago Doyle and Morgan added a second penalty, whilst SHC scored two further converted tries and a penalty to hold a narrow lead by 22 – 18 at halftime.

After the break, we started well again and Chicago Doyle was in for his second try in the left hand corner after some splendid inter-passing. Aidan was unable to convert but did add a second penalty later on, whilst SHC could only add a penalty, and with ten minutes to play, our lead was 29 – 25. Once again, SHC put their forwards to work and they hammered away at our line. Our defence around the rucks was strong, so they moved the ball wide where their blindside flanker scored his second try of the match and with the successful conversion, SHC held a narrow three point lead – 32 – 29 with five minutes to go in the match. Unfortunately, the scoreboard operator was having a few difficulties adding correctly and the scoreboard mistakenly read 33 – 29 to SHC and I certainly did not pick up this mistake. So, when we were awarded two penalties straight out in front of their posts, instead of taking the three points to tie the scores up at 32-all, Aidan chose to kick for the corner thinking we needed to score a try because there was a four point deficit on the scoreboard… Both lineouts were lost and SHC managed to maintain possession for the last two minutes, kicked the ball out and it was all over. Gutted! We did not lose the game because of the scoreboard mistake, but the mistake cost us the draw and an invaluable 2 points that would have kept us top of the table. Instead, we now find ourselves narrowly in 3rd place behind Kelston Boys’ High School and Auckland Grammar.

We are still in control of our own destiny at this stage of the season and the equation is very simple for next weekend – we MUST beat St Peter’s, knowing that we can then go into the holidays very confident that we can still hold our place in the top four. Like last week, our next match is also here at King’s and it will be televised on Sky Sport 1 as this match is a repeat of the final played at Eden Park last year – and we all still remember the result from that game…

Second XV
King’s 3-36 Kelston Boys' High School 

The King’s Second XV played Kelston at their home ground. Down on numbers and reserves the King’s men who took the field on Saturday played gallantly.

I can’t fault the commitment and brave effort of the lads in the first half confining the opposition to 24-0. The lads found a second gear in the second half and played out of their skins reducing the final score line to 36-3.

What an amazing effort in the circumstances.

Team building on Tuesday, pizzas on coaches.

Andre, Kams, Awanui and Dan

Under 15s
King’s 15-17 Wesley College 

On Saturday 22 June the boys played Wesley College at Wesley. It was a good game by both teams but we didn’t come out with the win.

At the start of the first half King’s put Wesley under a lot of pressure with our really good defence and also winning a lot of their line outs and scrums. Within the first five minutes King’s managed to score against Wesley. Harry Kaveriri kicked the ball then Nick chased the ball and nearly got the try but then he was tackled,but offloaded the ball to Bailey to get the try. King’s missed the conversion because they didn’t have a tee but the score was 5-0 to King’s. A few minutes later Robin Couley managed to score, breaking through Wesley's defence. We missed the conversion again but the score was 10-0 to King's. The score at the end of the first half was 10-0 to King's.

The second half started with Wesley's ball, unfortunately with a lack of key defence Wesley managed to break through our defence and get their first try but they missed their conversion. The score, 10-5 to King’s. Halfway through the second half Daniel Wyber got though their defence and scored against Wesley college. But unfortunately Robin Couley got injured. The score, 15-5. A couple minutes later Wesley got through King’s defence and they scored the try and managed to get the conversion. The score was 15-12 to King’s. A couple of minutes before the end of second half Wesley scored again bringing the score up to 15-17 but missed the conversion. The score at full time was 15-17 to Wesley.

It was a great game, the boys were really exhausted. They managed to keep up the great defence but didn’t quite manage to hold them off during the end. The boys have trained hard for the season and shown what they have learned in this game, although there is still more that the boys can work on to improve in their next games in the future.

Manase Vaitohi (Year 11, Marsden)

1R
King’s 5-20 Sacred Heart 

King’s 1R headed into Saturday’s game looking to make up for last week’s disappointing loss to St Peter’s. We were at home on the number 2 field with top of the table Sacred Heart ready and waiting. With the early kick off time of 9.15am, it seemed we were still tucked up in bed asleep as we failed to wake up to start the game.

Sacred marched us down field and before we knew it we were down 10-nil from a simple try to them and a penalty within the first 10 minutes. However, from there it seemed our Weet-bix kicked in as we wrestled our way back into the game. With our first real use of the ball we set the rolling maul from 10 metres barging over through Jibreel Aumua to get the scoreboard working. We held strong as we had plenty more chances to break them late in the first half but our handling and discipline once again let us down. We headed into the break trailing 13-5, after a late penalty in the half to Sacred.

The second half couldn’t have started better for us as we set up shop in the Sacred 22 having countless chances to break them. Stu Macalister looked to have given us 3 points, but some confusion between the touch judges meant it was waved away. Still we kept the foot on the gas as we looked to break them. Reuben Fautua crossed out wide but strong defence kept him held up. We just couldn’t crack the Sacred wall as we again were let down by our handling and discipline. Sacred got out of jail as it became a real arm wrestle in the middle of the field with both sides’ defence getting tested. We held strong until the very end before slipping up and again letting in a pretty soft try, going down 20-5 in the finish. Plenty again to take away from the game, with us being our own worst enemies. However, we can hold our heads high knowing we weren’t far away from them. The 1R show rolls on next week as we have our second TV game of the season, a rematch against St Peter’s at home on the Number 1.

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

Tyrese “Tino” Rairi has made himself a home in the forwards. His countless hit ups, always breaking the first tackle get us on the front foot. His shoulders must be sore after brick wall like defence shutting down the Sacred attack

In the backs Mika Tuia at 13 and Alex Goodwin at the back again tested the Sacred defence every time they touched the ball as they got us over the advantage line. Alex at fullback returned everything that Sacred threw at him, while you would need a GPS to work out the tracks he took on his kick returns.

5A
King’s 26-0 Westlake

King's welcomed Westlake to town on Saturday and enjoyed a great game of rugby against a team seldom seen in the Auckland competition.  Westlake played an interesting brand of rugby and it took us quite a while to weather the Westlake storm before settling things in the second half. 

The only score of the first half came very early with some excellent interchanges between forwards and backs and Taigo Chapman finishing out wide. Two members of the forward pack were injured in the first half and it made gaining continuity difficult. 

King's regathered at halftime and the team leaders spoke sharply at the break. A brilliant second half saw King's defend mightily and work very hard for their scores. George Hall was the first to score an excellent individual try after a cross-kick from Nathan Robinson and, when Jack Proctor ran hard through the Westlake pack to score under the posts, King's were in a healthy position. Tim Jones on the wing scored our 4th try just before the end and will be pleased with his strong run to get over the line. 

Josh Nichol at 12 and Monty Hare at 13 were mentioned by the opposition coach as being integral to their loss and great credit must go to the duo for tying up all the loose ends in midfield. Joe Taylor and Nathan Robinson pulled the strings at 9 and 10 and all of the forwards were immense in turning over ball and putting in massive shifts in the engine room. 

5A are in a strong, unbeaten position after 3 rounds of the competition and need to keep their wits about them with 2 big games next week; Macleans on Saturday and St Kent’s next Wednesday. 

5B
King’s 20-18 Dilworth

King’s welcomed second place Dilworth on Saturday on an eagerly awaited tie played on our number three field.

A tall strong looking Dilworth side arrived and they went straight into their warm up.

Coach spoke about starting off strong and making our first tackle count and dominating with our forwards.

King’s started off like last week defending with Dilworth having a strong back line but weak up front, King’s dominated the line out and at the scrum. King’s missed numerous opportunities to score tries with dropped balls and handling errors due to the wet ball and making wrong choices.

This saw Dilworth come back into the game and score after sustained pressure making it 5-0 a great try down the line shortly after by King’s away it was 5-5 however, Dilworth scored from a penalty making it 8-5 at halftime.

A bizarre twist ten minutes into the game saw the referee hobble off due to a tear in his knee. Mr Putt came on and done a great job on the whistle.

King’s scored another try to make it 10-8 but again missed opportunities saw Dilworth score two quick tries to make it 18-10 and we were seriously under the pump.

However the character of this team showed through and they refused to give up. King’s started pilling on the pressure in the last ten with a great try by Adam Irvine after our forwards got some decent ball to our backs. Try converted 18-17.

The last two minutes saw King’s given a penalty after sustained pressure and Tom Ogg struck it over to make it 20-18 game over or was it?

Last 30 seconds saw another dropped ball by King’s and a penalty given for hands in the ruck to Dilworth right in front of the posts on our 22 , I thought our unbeaten run was over, however the rugby gods looked down on us as the Dilworth player missed right in front.

Our worst performance of the season and a busy week awaits us at training. A gutsy win against a gutsy team who are technically not good but tough and battle hardened.

A HUGE thank you as always to our parents who come and support us 

Player of the day: Adam Irvine.

6A
vs Sacred Heart

Due to the un-contested scrum ruling, the home game verses Sacred Heart was a non-competition game without points. The King’s boys again showed great resilience against tough opposition. Thank you again to the boys willing to play out of position and covering for a number of our forwards who are away on camp. Player of the day is the gutsy flanker Charlie Webb. Charlie rallied the forward pack continually by not giving up and exemplifying this by his determined example.

7th Grade

Bye