St Paul's Host Under 16's and 18's
14th September 2009 11:31AM
St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton was the venue for two age grade competition fixtures on Saturday. In an initiative from the WRU to have the under 16’s, 17’s and 18’s train and play at the same venue, St Paul’s put their hand up and offered to accommodate the three teams. Because St Paul’s have such wonderful facilities it has been a major success, St Paul’s offers the teams a field each to train on, classrooms to facilitate video analysis sessions, a storage shed for training equipment and a great catering facility for aftermatch functions.
Cor Bezuidenhout, Chris Luman and Peter Gilbert from St Paul’s have been outstanding in making this initiative such a success. They are very good rugby men and their contribution to helping the WRU out is very much appreciated. All three of them have gone out of there way to make the logistics run as smoothly as possible.
Waikato Under 16’s beat Thames Valley 61-3 on Saturday. It was a great display of running rugby from Waikato who needed a strong performance to get their campaign back on track after a last minute loss to Counties the week before.
Waikato scored 11 tries with Paea Mau contributing 3.
Strong games were played by Blindside flanker Kane Jacobson(Cambridge High), Lock Alex Suttie(HBHS) and fullback Joseph Webber(HBHS).
The forwards were again strong at set piece and also were committed at the breakdown. The backs started to find some rhythm and created many opportunities out wide.
Waikato 61
Tries: Paea Mau 3, Hadliegh May 2, Nathan Sunde 2, Andrew Brown 2, Damian Ensor, Mark Tyrell
Conversions: Wharenui Hawera 3
The Waikato Under 18 team had a magnificent victory against Auckland B in their first game of the Under 18 competition.
Because of HBHS involvement in the National Top 4 the team only managed to have 2 sessions before this fixture.
It was a courageous performance from a team that was much smaller in comparison to their northern rivals. The game was played in terrible weather but it didn’t effect the teams willingness to play an adventurous and exciting brand of rugby.
Waikato flankers, Captain Damian Bardoul(Hinuera) and Whetu Douglas(University) had industrious games stealing a lot of Aucklands ball. Winger Navi Sikivou(HBHS) was a threat all game and had some magical touches.
Waikato won the game 11-8 and will play North Harbour this weekend in Northcote.
Waikato 11
Try: Whetu Douglas
Penalty: Todd Doolan 2
