The Eels slithered all the way to Port and, in a tight, tense affair, came away with their second win to remain in the top three. It was Harbour’s first outing for the year and it showed enough to prove it will be competitive. Southern was unconvincing but got the points over GI. From a GI perspective, a far better performance. In the game of the round, Kaik prevailed over Varsity in a see-saw encounter to remain top. On current form, Varsity, however, is a serious contender for the top four. The Onion (AU) confirmed that last week’s result was no fluke against Varsity when it crashed and burned against the Sharks. More on that next week.
What’s with the bye?
The trainspotters at the ODT, the club busy bodies and the odd bystander want to know what is happening with byes and points in the prem competition. Read this carefully as I’m going here only once. We are playing a split round plus a full round this year with nine teams. So five teams have two byes and four teams have one. In the full round there are no points for the bye. In the split round, the odd teams 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 based on last year’s final seedings will get 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 point for their bye depending where they are on the points table after the split round finishes on May 6. Simple and end of discussion.
Down on the farm
Here was me thinking that rugby in the North was cancelled this year due to a lack of interest. But, no, they turned up on Saturday with country teams Kurow, Valley and Maheno all winning. By my simple arithmetic, Jacko, the North Otago “brains trust’’, has brought in 30 new players to bolster the stocks. The 747 was so loaded down that six players were parachuted out of said plane over Oamaru airport. I’ll update you next week on who the favourites are. In Central, Upper Clutha and the Goats look like finalists at this early stage and Wakatipu can’t win a game. I was going to predict a West Taieri Pigs victory in the south this year but I’d rather cut my arm off! Lot of upsets at the weekend so more study required before I put it on the line. But speaking of Country, I saw a video the other day of a young, misguided Kai (Crescent) player in a rather inebriated state grab a can of line-painting white paint and proceed to tip it over his naked body in the changing rooms — a bizarre sight by the end of it as he started to realise what he’d done. Only in South Otago!
Other weird bits
The ancient school teacher and historian from the Onion who shall remain nameless has unilaterally decided that in their 150th year that they shall now be known as AU because nobody can spell Alhambra. Really?! Surely they’ve got bigger problems to worry about this year — whether they’ll still be a club at the end of the year, for starters. Word of advice, team: never leave a schoolteacher in charge of anything.
I witnessed one of the great after-match speeches of all times a couple of weeks ago. The burly, roly poly and rather taciturn prop and captain of Strath Taieri who had played and beaten the Dunedin 2B town mob wasn’t happy that Dunedin had resorted to golden oldie scrums. In a three-minute speech, he managed to mention that fact seven times. Outstanding work.
Player of year
We’ve lost our team of selectors from last year in Finchy, Dave Callon and twins Milburn and O’Driscoll as they’ve all moved on to bigger and better things. We have managed to grab another band of merry men to replace them. Mike Casey (Taieri), Wof Arthur (AU), Doc Dougherty (Kaik) and Mike Reggett from Southern. They’ll be handing out 3, 2, 1 points to the best three players each week plus keeping an eye out for promising new players who are up for the Ben Smith medal. Keep your eye out for this illustrious group and feel free to remonstrate with them if you’re not happy with their selections.
This weekend
Destroyed Brian Greer from Harbour at the weekend to remain unbeaten and on to Mike Jackson so the unbeaten run continues. GI is at home at its beloved Toolbox and the Hawks (12-) make the migration from Port and they might just be too strong up front for the Spannerheads. In the game of the round, Southern (12-) at home might just see off Varsity but it will be oh so close. Zingers have forgone home ground advantage to play at the Greenhouse against the Sharks (13+) and will rue that decision. The Eels (13+) wriggle into town to take on AU at the Pony Pit and should comfortably bank five points.
In the prem women’s, AU (12-) may just hold out Varsity to give me the sweep.
Unbelievably got destroyed in the country by John Cleghorn last week. I’ll put it down to the paint fumes from Kai! On to Andrew Paterson from Matak this week and I go good in Central. The Maggots (12-) will keep Wakatipu winless. Upper Clutha (13+) will be all over Arrow at Jack Reid Park. Matak host the Goats (13+) in Omakau and it will be a long afternoon for them.
