John McGlashan College won the rematch of last year's Otago Secondary Schools First XV final today, beating South Otago High School 22-12 at John McGlashan College.
Brett Kingsbury crossed for two tries and Luke Jarvie scored one as the hosts claimed victory over their previously unbeaten opponents.
John McGlashan Team Director Mike Idour was happy with how his team played against a quality opposition.
"Generally I thought they played very well," he said.
"I was pretty content with the result and the way they went about it. They stuck to their guns [in a] tough game, the opposition was very good.
"[John McGlashan] defended really well when they had to and when they had to score tries they did."
They scored the first of those tries early, before South Otago hit back with one of their own. John McGlashan then crossed again early in the second half, before scoring again midway through the half to take a 22-5 lead. A try on fulltime to South Otago closed the gap to 10.
The conditions saw John McGlashan bring a simple approach which worked well for them.
"We played it pretty simple really because it was pretty windy," Idour said.
"We just went up the middle with our runners and then spread it wide.
"A lot of the action came from broken play, rather than set play. We stole some of their ball at times and made a lot of ground with that."
Despite the win Idour said his team still had room to improve.
"There are work-ons definitely. Getting the ball wide faster and taking better advantage of field position."
John McGlashan remain on top of the table with 14 points, alongside Dunstan High School. They are followed by South Otago and Waitaki Boys' High School, each on 10 points.
In other games Dunstan remained unbeaten with a 48-32 win over St Kevin's College.
Taieri College claimed a 38-22 away win over Mount Aspiring College, while Otago Boys' High School 2nd XV were far too good for Kavanagh College, winning 69-0.
Waitaki Boys' beat King's High School 29-27 in Dunedin on Wednesday.
