Grey’s wait over !
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qIGhT-TMJk&w=640&h=360]
by Tui Bromley – greystar.co.nz
The Grey Valley Rugby Club’s 34-year-old wait for its first West Coast rugby championship finally ended in Hokitika on Saturday, the Ikamatua-based side beating Kiwi 26-7 in a volatile and sometimes brutal encounter.
The Taylorville-Wallsend Cup match twice erupted in all-in brawls, much to the delight of the bloodthirsty element of the large crowd ringing the Cass Square ground, many saving their loudest cheers for the fighting.
Matt Olson (Kiwi) and Tere Wycliff (Grey Valley) earned yellow cards for a mass flare-up in the first half, and Jeremy Muir (Kiwi) and Peter Nicholls (Grey Valley) received red cards, and booked appearances before the judiciary, for the more serious scrap, which spilled over the sideline in the second spell.
Earlier, Kiwi centre Mitchell Brown was fortunate to escape a red card for felling Grey Valley lynchpin Tim Priest with a punch from behind. Fortunately for him, Brown’s act, which sparked the first mass punch-up, escaped the notice of Canterbury referee Gareth Reed.
Valley dominated territory in the first half to lead 19-0 at the break but the second spell was more even, play flowing from end to end. Conditions favoured running rugby but it was far from a vintage performance from the home team, which made uncharacteristic handling mistakes, failed to find touch from penalty kicks, had a kick-off fail to go the distance and found referee Reed seemingly against them.
Reed dished out a slew of first-half penalties to Grey Valley, four of them being guided through the uprights by Priest, while another — Priest turned down a kick at goal in favour of a lineout — led to a try to Nicholls, which Priest converted from the sideline to give his side a big cushion at the break.
Kiwi, playing catch-up in the second 40, threw caution to the wind, spinning the ball wide at every opportunity, but more often than not the passes did not stick and valley gratefully accepted easy turnovers, which Priest booted deep into opposition territory to ensure that all Kiwi’s raids had to be long range ones.
Kiwi’s endeavours were finally rewarded with a try to Logan Winter, converted by Sean McClure, but it was too little too late and valley wing Mike Bruhn capped a fine game by nonchalantly dotting the ball down after he crossed the line without a hand being laid on him. As if to emphasise his team’s authority, Bruhn took his time to delicately place the ball, before Priest again added the extras from the sideline; his only miss of the day was a long range effort, which dropped under the bar.
All four wings — Bruhn and Jamie Havill (Grey Valley) and Peter Te Rakau and Brent McBride (Kiwi) — made long evasive runs, Bruhn being especially hard to bring down. Valley lock Andrew Verway towered in the lineouts, as he has done all season, to win all his own ball and disrupt, if not win, the opposition’s ball, and prop Dave Crouchley’s charges at the defence always took his team over the advantage line.
The Kiwi pack, with Troy Tauwhare, Tim Scadden and Neil Linklater to the fore, had a slight edge in the scrums but struggled to win clean lineout ball.
Of the backs, McClure and halfback Jarrod Ferguson again showed their class but as a unit the Kiwi backline failed to click on the one day that really mattered, and Grey Valley were deserved winners.
Grey Valley 26 (P Nicholls, M Bruhn tries, T Priest 4 pens, 2 cons)
Kiwi 7 (L Winter try, S McClure con)