West Taieri started the Southern Region club season with a less than convincing but hard-fought 34-32 win over Crescent in Outram on Saturday.
The first half of the match was a tight battle as Crescent made the most of possession they had.
West Taieri soaked up pressure as they forced Crescent to go numerous phases before earning the right to score points.
One thing that kept the home side in the match was Crescent’s poor discipline.
West Taieri goal-kicker Callum Smeaton kept his side in the fixture with four first-half penalties.
The match was in the balance at halftime, West Taieri holding a slim 19-15 lead.
Crescent’s poor discipline continued after the break, leading to midfielder Jonathan Muagututia being shown a red card for a tip tackle.
This allowed West Taieri to gain some parity off the back of a strong forward display.
Prop Ethan Hippolite crashed over the line to extend the score.
Crescent started to make changes which upped the tempo despite being a man short for 20 minutes.
Continued pressure resulted in West Taieri making key mistakes which Crescent capitalised on.
With less than five minutes remaining, Crescent was ahead 32-29 before a strong West Taieri scrum allowed No 8 Conor Lawson to steamroll his way over the line to give his side the winning try.
Clutha started their season with an impressive 54-14 home win over Owaka although they did not have it all their own way for the first hour of the match.
Owaka was the better side in the first 40 but were their own worst enemy at times.
Clutha scored an early try but the visitors controlled the majority of the first half.
Owaka’s dominance of territory and possession forced Clutha into defending for long periods during which they leaked two quick tries.
Clutha finished the half strongly and went into halftime 19-14 ahead.
The opening stages of the second half were dominated by Owaka, but silly kicks and poor decisions gave Clutha the ball back needlessly.
Clutha’s bench added a huge amount of impact and, in the end, Owaka ran out of legs, giving Clutha maximum points from the match.
Toko travelled to Clydevale and beat Clutha Valley 31-26 in a strong performance.
In a scrappy first half, Toko took advantage of a flat-looking home side by scoring two early tries to start their match off well.
A strong 35 minutes enabled the visitors to dominate proceedings although handling errors kept the home side in touch.
Toko led 12-7 at the break.
Valley showed a glimpse of fight in the second half, but they were always chasing the game.
Toko extended their lead before Valley scored at the death to narrow the score and make it look slightly closer than the match actually was.
Heriot took the West Otago Shield away from Lawrence with a 43-24 win.
Heriot’s backline was once again on point, and they made huge metres in the outside channels.
The score was tied 12-12 at halftime before Heriot upped the physicality and accuracy in the second half to take an impressive win.
By Francis Parker
