{"id":1687,"date":"2014-07-24T09:16:27","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T21:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westcoastrfu.com\/?p=1687"},"modified":"2014-07-24T09:16:27","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T21:16:27","slug":"greys-wait-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westcoast.retrorugby.net\/index.php\/2014\/07\/24\/greys-wait-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Grey’s wait over !"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"GREY<\/a>
GREY VALLEY \u2013 CHAMPIONS 2014<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7qIGhT-TMJk&w=640&h=360]
\nby Tui Bromley \u2013 greystar.co.nz<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The Grey Valley Rugby Club’s 34-year-old wait\u00a0for its first West Coast rugby championship finally ended in Hokitika on Saturday, the Ikamatua-based side beating Kiwi 26-7 in a volatile\u00a0and sometimes brutal encounter.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Taylorville-Wallsend Cup\u00a0match twice\u00a0erupted in all-in brawls, much to the delight of\u00a0the bloodthirsty element of the large crowd\u00a0ringing the Cass Square ground, many saving their loudest cheers for the fighting.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Matt Olson (Kiwi) and Tere Wycliff (Grey Valley) earned yellow cards for a mass\u00a0flare-up in the first half, and Jeremy Muir (Kiwi) and Peter Nicholls (Grey Valley) received\u00a0red cards, and booked appearances before the judiciary,\u00a0for the more serious scrap, which spilled over the sideline in the second spell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier, Kiwi centre Mitchell Brown was fortunate to escape a red card for felling Grey Valley lynchpin Tim Priest with a punch from behind.\u00a0Fortunately for him, Brown’s act,\u00a0which sparked the first mass punch-up,\u00a0escaped the notice of Canterbury referee Gareth Reed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Valley dominated territory in the first half to lead 19-0 at the break\u00a0but the second spell was more even,\u00a0play flowing from end to end. Conditions favoured running rugby but it was far from a vintage performance from the home team, which made\u00a0uncharacteristic handling mistakes, failed to find touch from penalty kicks, had\u00a0a kick-off fail to go the distance and found referee Reed seemingly against them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0Nicholls, which Priest converted from the sideline to give his side a big cushion\u00a0at the break.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0booted deep into opposition territory to ensure that all Kiwi’s raids had to be long range ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kiwi’s endeavours were finally rewarded with a try to\u00a0Logan Winter, converted by Sean McClure, but it was too little too late and valley wing Mike Bruhn capped a fine game by\u00a0nonchalantly dotting the ball\u00a0down after he crossed the line without a hand being laid on him. As if to emphasise his team\u2019s\u00a0authority, Bruhn took his time to delicately place the ball, before\u00a0Priest again added the extras from the sideline; his only miss of the day was a long range effort, which dropped under the bar.<\/span><\/p>\n

All four wings \u2014 Bruhn and Jamie Havill (Grey Valley) and Peter Te Rakau and Brent McBride (Kiwi) \u2014 made long evasive runs, Bruhn being especially hard to bring down.\u00a0Valley 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\u00a0his team over the advantage line.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Kiwi pack,\u00a0with Troy Tauwhare, Tim Scadden and Neil Linklater to the fore, had a slight edge in the scrums but struggled to win clean lineout ball.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Grey Valley 26<\/strong> (P Nicholls, M Bruhn tries, T Priest 4 pens, 2 cons)<\/em><\/span>
\n Kiwi 7<\/strong> (L Winter try, S McClure con)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7qIGhT-TMJk&w=640&h=360] by Tui Bromley \u2013 greystar.co.nz The Grey Valley Rugby Club’s 34-year-old wait\u00a0for its first West Coast rugby championship finally ended in Hokitika on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10],"tags":[84,86,131,191],"class_list":["post-1687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-club-rugby","category-west-coast-ru","tag-grey-valley","tag-grey-valley-rugby-club","tag-kiwi","tag-peter-nicholls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoast.retrorugby.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoast.retrorugby.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoast.retrorugby.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoast.retrorugby.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoast.retrorugby.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/westcoast.retrorugby.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoast.retrorugby.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoast.retrorugby.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoast.retrorugby.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}