Kaleb Foote has been one of the best performing players during the opening four rounds of the King Country Club Rugby Competition. PHOTO AGGIE MOLI PHOTOGRAPHY
Will anyone be able to stop the Taupō Sports dominance in the King Country Club Rugby competition this year?
The black and whites have notched up four impressive wins and are clearly shaping up as the team to beat.
Outside the top spot, it’s a log-jammed table with little between Tongariro United in second place and Taupō United in eighth.
After a tough few weeks on the road, which saw the Taumarunui Eels travel to Owen Delany Park in Taupō twice and Kio Kio in the opening three weeks, they returned home to Cherry Grove where they took on the unbeaten Taupō Sports.
Although coming up short, with a loss of 23-5, it was a spirited performance by the red and blacks.
The 18-point defeat was the closest anyone had come to knocking over the competition heavyweights this season, with Saturday’s game the first time Sports failed to register a four try bonus point all season.
Districts continued their promising start to the season to maintain third place with a hard-fought 25-10 away victory against Waitomo.
Still down on troops, with some of their key performers out, it was a good performance from the Ollie Kay-coached side.
Waitomo opened the scoring through a rolling maul, with the try awarded to Sam Trangmar, although Jaide Barlow and Kay were prominent in the lead up.
Districts responded with two well taken tries before their fullback raced away on halftime to put them ahead 17-5.
A further try and penalty after halftime were enough to seal the win for Districts, who were celebrating hard working flanker Leveson Gower’s 50th match.
The Carl Carmichael-coached Piopio team recorded a hard fought 32-29 victory over Taupō Marist at Owen Delany Park.
It was an exciting encounter as both teams looked to play some good attacking rugby and scored some good tries with Piopio number 8 Kaleb Foote, again one of the best on the park.
The victory secured Piopio fourth place in the standings after four rounds.
Benneydale is always a challenging place to travel to play rugby and that again proved true as Waitete scored a hard-earned 17-3 victory over the winless Bush United.
Kio Kio United remains winless but showed plenty of promise as they fell to Tongariro United 25-13 in Turangi.
It was an inspiring display from the visitors in less-than-ideal conditions.
Their best in the defeat were Talalelei Moli, Cale Paul and James Hemara.
This weekend they return to Maihiihi Domain where the club is based to host Taupō Marist.
Bush United face a difficult assignment in a trip to Taupō to face the unbeaten Taupō Sports.
Waitomo, who hope to welcome back a couple of key players, host Tongariro United at Waitomo Domain and Waitete travel to Cherry Grove to face the Eels in what is shaping up as an exciting contest, while the match of the round is set for Piopio as they host Taumarunui Districts.
