Ecolab Te Awamutu Sports caused a huge upset in the Waikato Top 8 Championship Round, beating one of the competition favorites 22-21.  Sports thoroughly deserved their win playing with a huge amount of commitment and passion. Coaches Joe Edwards and Kerry Eynon were pleased with their teams effort after being thumped by the same team just 2 weeks earlier. They showed the potential and talent to match it with the ‘big guns’.

From the start of the game Sports were pinned down deep in their half having to defend and showed huge commitment in defence to hold off wave after wave of Techs’  attacks. All of Techs pressure came to nothing and it was Sports who eventually opened the scoring through half-back Johnny Bird, who broke down the blind side and kicked down field, he chased hard and put pressure on Techs full-back who couldn’t gather the bouncing ball and is sat up nicely for him to race clear and score behind the posts.  Sports went further in front when a clearing kick from Tech failed to go out. Sports moved the ball from one side of the field to the other where wing Ryan Meacheam delivered a magical reverse pass back to centre Mark Murray who found himself in space and raced clear untouched to score and give sports a handy 14-0 lead.  Tech replied late in the half after keeping pressure on Sports to catch then short of defenders out wide and scored ending the half at 14-7 to Sports.

The start of the second period had Tech ‘uping’ the pace of the game. They again kept Sports down deep in their half and were rewarded with 2 quick tries, one through their forward pack and the second soon after to their pacy backs, both were converted and gave them a 21-14 lead. Many thought  Tech might ease away, but Sports just kept digging in and again half-back Bird ‘sparked’ them with his second try, timing his run perfectly to intercept a Tech pass and outpace the defenders to score.  Sports couldn’t add the extra points and trailed 21-19.  Both sides through everything at each other, Sports were unsuccessful with 2 penalty shots at goal.  With 4 minutes remaining Sports were again awarded a penalty 40 metres out in midfield. Waylon Tangahou stepped up to land the penalty and give his side a 22-21 lead.  Tech stormed back with time running out, and were unsuccessful with a long range penalty.  From the restart Sports kicked deep and rushed up in a line to stop any attack, won a penalty, which Tangahou promptly kicked out to end the game and give Sports a huge win.

Up front Sports competed well, lead by props Kieran Ramage and Nathan White, with great support from locks Daniel Gujer and ‘Man of the Match’ Shaun Coutts. Coutts had a fine all round game at lineout time and his commitment on defence was superb. Sports mid-field of Hayden Wolfsbauer and Mark Murray combined well together, working extra hard defending and causing Fraser Tech problems on attack.

Sports next encounter is away at Morrinsville Sports.

Report from
Peter Bain