After comfortably beating their first two opponents this season, the Wakatipu Premiers faced a tougher rival on Saturday, though the White Horse Cup remains in their possession.
The Alexandra team stormed on to Wakatipu's field and kept the home team in defence for most of the match.
Coach Damian Petre said the Alexandra team ''were a real test''.
''They certainly came to put some pressure on us to take the White Horse Cup,'' Petre said.
''The teams that come to our home ground are certainly fired up.''
His side's saving grace was when it did have the ball in its possession, three ''very good'' tries were scored by Tony Farley, Danny King and Francisco Castro.
Tension was mounting at halftime, with Wakatipu only slightly ahead 18-13.
Player of the match was Ben MacDonald.
Knowing the team will be facing some fierce opposition in coming games, Petre said ''we are just going to have to treasure the ball a bit more.
''We gave away the ball too easily ... and spent the majority of yesterday on defence.''
Wakatipu won 31-18 to defend the White Horse Cup. The team will have to maintain ball possession in this weekend's second White Horse Cup challenge at home against Maniototo.
Petre said traditionally, Maniototo was one of the toughest rival teams and he anticipated the challenge to be ''another step up''.
• Arrowtown played a tightly-fought home game against Cromwell A which resulted in a 14-10 win to Arrowtown.
Coach Hayden Finch described the game as ''very physical and very tight'' from start to finish, and the winter chill over the weekend meant conditions were also tough.
The sole try was scored by Adam Hubber and three penalties by Kane Dodds brought the score to 14 at fulltime.
At halftime Arrowtown led 8-3.
Player of the match was Richard Lee.
This weekend Arrowtown is to play Roxburgh at Roxburgh, and Finch said the team would be looking to ''use the whole squad'' and keep improving.
