The Final Four!

Round 7 Review The seventh and final round of the Hardham Cup was played on Saturday resulting in no changes to the top four. Hutt Old Boys Marist is at the top of the table after thrashing Marist St Pats 74-5. Old Boys-University is in second place still, with a sloppy win over Petone 19-0 and Oriental-Rongotai take third spot after their 17-7 win over Poneke. Johnsonville are the last team to make the top four, just pipping Northern United 14-12. Norths, Poneke, Petone and Marist St Pats round out the bottom of the table

HOBM will host Johnsonville in the first semi-final at the Hutt Recreation Ground on Sunday, while OBU and Ories will square off in the other.

The feature match for the weekend was the encounter between second placed
OBU and Petone. The game was riddled with unforced errors due to the wet
conditions, which saw the game have a jagged pace the whole way through.
Holding onto the ball proved to be particularly difficult and scrums were
a frequent occurrence. Both teams had their fair share of possession but
OBU dominated for the better part of the match. OBU managed to snipe a
gap early on in the first half, which put Clinton Huppert over and OBU in front.
For the remainder of the half honours were evenly shared with no one
crossing the line, leaving the scores at 7-0 going into the break.

The second half was when OBU took control and began to make all the
right moves. Possession was in their favour, along with territory and
handling errors. This resulted in the side scoring twice more before the
conclusion of the match through first five-eighth Seminar Manu, who also converted the both of them. Tackling let Petone down, who played very well at times and even looked like winning on several occasions. A player that stood out for the
entire game was Petone fullback Alan Cook who kicked from his twenty-two
extremely well and his running of the ball was second to none, as he
gained a lot of metres for his side. Despite the result, Petone put up a good fight and the score didn't reflect the closeness of the match.

William Bedford

Hardham Cup Top Point Scorers
Corey Burt (Jville) 160
Jonathon Bentley (HOBM) 122
Mike Kingsbeer (HOBM) 101
Patrick Maguire (OBU) 67
Farrand Turner (Jville) 60
Miah Nikora (Ories) 49
Geoff Brown (Poneke) 46
Jonathon Manu (HOBM) 45
Malakai Kisina (HOBM) 43
Roy Kinikinilau (Ories) 35