Five weeks after the region was very overrun in Covid, the game had to default to Arrowtown. Saturday’s Maniototo cleared the turmoil of the Central Otago season and beat Arrowtown 26-17 at Jack Reid Park.
Maniototo will advance to the semi-finals after finishing 6 out of 8 teams in qualifying, where he will face defending champion Cromwell Goat, who spent a luxurious weekend vacation.
Another semi-final will take place on Saturday between Wakatipu and Wanaka’s Upper Crusa, who handled the Mataka Nui Combine 41-3 in Queenstown.
Maniototo captain Pete O’Malley was “over the moon” in his team’s performance against Arrowtown.
“It was a challenging season for Covid,” he said.
“But we came here with a healthy team and a good game plan.”
It was the third time in four seasons that Maniototo confused Jack Reid Park’s Arrowtown, but O’Malley enjoyed the experience for the first time.
Arrow as Maniototo established a 10-0 advantage in 12 minutes through a stunning solo try by center Tom Doherty and the first two of the six goals landed by stunning young fullback Doug Smith. The town alarm bell rang early.
Arrowtown finally settled down, giving Tom Grandiek and Connor Bisset a try, thanks to two scorching breaks by Tom Goosey, who turned from winger to fullback, to 17-13 in the second two minutes. is.
When the locals thought the flow had changed, they were terribly wrong.
Controlled by the lineout, Maggot maintained an overwhelming territorial advantage throughout the rest of the game. This means that Smith was within range of the goal kick each time Arrowtown broke.
And he failed only once out of seven attempts, occupying 16 out of 26 points in Maniototo.
Maniototo’s second attempt was a powerful solo effort by halfback Luc Thompson, despite countless Arrowtown defenders’ desperate attempts.
In response to Maniototo’s onslaught, Arrowtown seemed completely unaware of how to counter the relentless attack, but was guilty of kicking too many possessions.
Wakatip was still hurt from his final defeat to Cromwell Goat, but was always in control of his team, Mataka Nui Combined, who won 57-13 a month ago.
This time, Wakatip increased the total season from 9 games to 67 games against Madfish’s single penalty goal, scoring 6 tries instead of 9.
―――― Bob Howit