Memorable day for Marist

Press, 14 May 1979, Page 18

Memorable day for Marist

It wm a red-letter day for the-Marist-Western Suburbs club at, the Show Grounds on Saturday; *hen its premier rugby league, team and two of its members, i Michael O’Donnell and Mocky’ prereton, gave record-breaking' Krformances at the expense oil ilswell. Marist thrashed HaisweU by I 73-41, its biggest victory in thej premier graoe. easily surpassing; its 31-9 defeat of Addington ■even years ago. But it was not a new provincial standard among the present clubs in the top division, for Addington beat ■ Kaiapoi by 84-4 in 1969. However, O'Donnell and Brereton did improve on records, for inter-club competition. O’Donnell began the game needing six points to equal the career record of 1331 points! held bv Trevor Williams; •Hornby*. He soon left that mark’ Well behind, his try and 11 goals extending his personal aggre-l gate to 1350 since his debut ml 1970. The five tries scored by. Brereton increased his record! career total to 144 and he isj How well within range of becoming the first player to reach! 150. His team-mate, Terry Gill-1 man, touched dow n twice; his 94; premier tries are a record for a' forv ard. Manst’s easy win carried it to the lead in the premiership, ■nd Papanui comfortably beat Kaiapoi to join Eastern Suburbs Hertz and Addington /which has had one mere game* in second position. Only a rash of basic errors prevented Papanui from beating kaiapoi by far more than the; final score of 32-6. A wide gulf clearly exists between the capabilities of the sides at the head I of the competition table andi those languishing near the bottom. Brereton, who scored five tries for a personal best the : twice touched down four times i ■gainst Sydenham in 1971), was Lie Man Tuam “man of the!

match” in the curtain-raiser, and Ken Tait, the Papanui scrum-half, was the Mennen ■ player of the match” in the late game. The Iron Horse ’Restaurant awards went to Da\id Baxter i Halsweli) and Ray I Howard (Kaiapoi*. I Results.— Papanui 32, Kaiapoi 6. Marist-Western Suburbs 73,

PAPANUI NOT PRESSED Kaiapoi never appeared likeiy to threaten Papanui's ascendancy in the late match, but it never stopped trying to

keep the winning margin withi in reasonable proportions. ! In that endeavour, Kaiapoi was I greatly assisted by its hooker, jDale Brown, who dominated the : first-half scrums. But Brown’s ’swiftness of strike was cancelled i out by Papanui’s having a mon- • opoly of the penalties, and handling errors at crucial times | caused the championship-holder to waste scoring opportunities. . Kaiapoi generally made little headway when in possession. Its manoeuvres were too orthodox to evade Papanui's defensive re-j sources, but a nicely timed pass by Kevin Steel left his fellow; centre, Tom Simmonds, with a j clear run to the try-line before the interval. The long-striding Papanui forwards, Doug Thompson. John Cole, and Mark Fuller, were all responsible for long raids into Kaiapoi’s territory, without consistently working in combination. Too often they ran until their own progress was blocked before seeking support. It was similar in the backs, as Kevin Williams, Russell Seaward, and Gary Taie — who was returning after a long spell on the side-lines because of injury —! displayed individual thrust, but. the line seldom functioned; fluently.

The scrum-halves, Ken Tait, of I Papanui, and Rav Howard, two I of the liveliest little players in the code, had a busy tussle. Both 1 have the evasiveness to skip : away from tackles, and Howard - covered well on defence and was 1 accurate with several of his line i kicks. < After all the scrappy play in the first 79 minutes, the match < had a fitting ending. Steel, who was married two hours later, i scored a last-minute try for ' Kaiapoi. 1 ONE-WAY TRAFFIC The pattern for the curtain- ’ raiser was established as early as I the second minute, when the Marist-Western Suburbs right i wing, Peter Nash, led what was i to become an almost monotonous I

procession to the Halsweli tryline. Halsweli was completely at a loss to mount more than token resistance against the waves of Marist attacks. The strong Marist pack held command in centrefield, drawing in the Halsweli cover-defence and allowing the Marist backs far too much freedom. Mocky Brereton, with five tries, and Michael O’Donnell, who complemented his 11 goals bv scoring the final try, led., the scoring landslide. Hal October, appreciating the switch from the win to stand-off half, backed up keenly for his three tries, and the second-rower, Stefan Hatipov, out-sprinted his rivals in a run of more than 50 metres for: his second touch-down.

The determined efforts by Halsweli to justify Its promotion to the premier grade have earned much admiration over the early part of the season, but it did not even approach the standard expected on Saturday. Its only memorable moments were provided by Lester Wilson, who twice pierced what appeared to be only a moderately interested defence to score. Only in the third quarter, when Marist failed to add to its total for 11 minutes and had five consecutive penalties awarded against it, was the scoreboard attendant given any respite. But Marist was already 34 points in front by then and Brereton was lurking in the centres waiting to add three more tries.

Halswell 6. PREMIERSHIP POINTS P W D L F A Pts Marist 3 3 0 0 131 24 6 Papanui 3 2 1 0 76 32 5 Eastern 3 2 1 0 79 42 5 Addington 4 2 1 1 76 51 5 Linwood 3 2 0 1 39 40 4 Sydenham 4 2 0 2 63 71 4 Halswell 4 1 0 3 34 129 2 Kaiapoi 4 0 I 3 52 115 1 Hornby 4 0 0 4 35 81 0