Bonus point wins in opening round of Fleurs Trophy

Above: Action from the Stokes Valley - Tawa first round match at Delaney Park.

There were bonus point wins in all four matches of the opening round of Premier Women’s Fleurs Trophy matches on Saturday, with last year’s finalists Northern United and Oriental-Rongotai and Hutt Valley neighbours Avalon and Stokes Valley all starting their seasons off with maximum reward.

Norths, Stokes Valley and Avalon each reached the half century of points in their matches. Defending champions Norths opened up with a 59-12 win over Wainiuomata, Avalon defeated Poneke 50-14 and Stokes Valley beat newcomers Tawa 54-0. Last year’s beaten finalists Ories defeated OBU 41-12 in a battle of two of the city teams.

A strong start from Norths proved too much for Wainuiomata to come back from in their season opener at Porirua Park. Good forward work up-front produced front running ball for the backs to prosper off.

Vaine Masters started proceedings after supporting an initial break from Lekah Leti to cross for their first try of season 2014. By the end of the first half, left wing Jamie McIntosh had a hat-trick to her name, Brenda Collins had a double and her sister Helen also scored, putting Norths up 29-0 at the interval.

Lamenting a poor first half defensive effort, Wainuiomata rallied after the break and were rewarded with two second half tries. Flanker Rosie Stirling and Kiri Mei muscling over to get the visitors on the board. ?Norths, however, added three more tries - a double to flanker Leitu Sa and one on the hooter to reserve wing Kayla-Lee Isaako.

Norths managed to get all seven debutants on the paddock in the win, while Wainuiomata, fielding a young team, were led by their best player in a losing side in Black Fern Jackie Patea.

The message out of both camps is one of room for improvement; handling errors in particular were rife for both sides throughout the game and set pieces were often scrappy.

On Kilbirnie Park, home side Poneke hosted Avalon.

The game was slow to start with an injury to a Poneke player in the first 10 minutes of play.

Avalon scored not long after that with the help of their happy feet kat Simpkins using her Sevens skills and side stepping at least five of the opposition.

Avalon dominated the next 20 minutes and finally broke down Poneke’s defence to score their second try. But Poneke returned the favour with a runaway try right up the middle, which was matched by dancing feet Simpkins, side stepping and fending as she punched straight up the middle and running at least the whole field to score under the posts.

The game was riddled with minor disruptions and unfortunately two yellow cards were issued for each team. Reduced to 14 players each, both teams capitalised and tit-for-tat tries were scored.

With a near new team, Avalon was able to utilise their backline extremely well and punished Poneke in the broken and open field exchanges. Poneke’s committed forward pack was a positive of their first-up performance and should trouble most teams this season.

At Prince of Wales Park, the boot of first five-eighth Lizzie Goulden and the regular accumulation of points gave Ories their win over OBU.

Goulden scored a try and kicked a conversion and four penalties for 21 points, while prop Nooleen Nonu, No.8 Miriam Ready, halfback Tyler Birch and midfielder Amanda Rasch scored tries. Ories led 26-0 at halftime.

In second round matches this coming weekend, Norths will look to re-live their 2013 final victory over Ories when they meet them at the Polo Ground, OBU host Stokes Valley at Prince of Wales Park, Wainuiomata and Poneke meet at William Jones Park and Tawa are at home at Lyndhurst Park for the first time.