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Four tries in 15 minutes sealed Carterton’s bonus-point victory over Marist at Memorial Park No. 2 on Saturday in the first round of the town and country series.
Last year’s beaten championship finalists dominated the early exchanges, but the home side took the lead when centre Cory Cathro beat the defence to the ball from an outstanding kick from debutant winger Hayden Cooper.
The visitors were finally rewarded for their wealth of possession and territorial pressure after 25 minutes when prop Tupou Lea’aemanu burrowed over after several forward charges.
The little Fijian magician Inia Katia extended the lead three minutes later when he robbed a Marist player of the ball and ran away to score in the corner.
Winger Fiula Tamielau finished off a good backline move after the Carterton scrum forced a tighthead, and another flying Fijian fullback Aseri

Waqa scored on the stroke of halftime to give the visitors a handy 29-8 lead.
The second half, however, failed to live up to the first 40 minutes with basic errors such as failing to find touch and kicking out on the full, crooked throw-ins, and numerous knock-ons disrupting the flow.
The complexity of the game did change with 20 minutes to go with 62-cap Wairarapa-Bush utility forward James Goodger playing his first game since leading Marist to championship glory in 2020.
Goodger took up refereeing last year after struggling with persistent shoulder injuries, but has returned to the playing ranks, and made an immediate impact. The 34-year-old dominated the lineouts, was a powerful ball runner, solid defensively, and directed the young Marist team around the paddock.
Marist’s dominance over the last quarter paid off with two late tries – the first to replacement hooker Sam Siaosi from a lineout drive, and the second to first-five Parau Hosking-Ellis in the last action of the game.
In the end, Carterton captain Daryl Pickering was pleased to hang on for the victory, “considering we stopped playing for the last 30 minutes”.
“We only just had a squad together probably the last week and a half, so we’ll take that any day,” Pickering said.

“We had guys coming off the bench who haven’t been to a training so to slot in there and still manage to come away with the win, yeah, no complaints really.”

Pickering said the plan is to build on last year’s effort, with the same core group of players.
“We’re just trying to benefit from the backline that we’ve got. We’ve got Inia in there steering us around and those young guys are pretty hard to catch out wide.”
He was rapt with the impact of veteran lock Lachie McFadzean, who is back in the fold after missing the 2021 season, as well as Hurricanes Under-20 rep Logan Wakefield, who had strong game at number 8.
“Logan has had a massive off season and he’s trained bloody hard and put on a few kgs in the off-season and you can definitely tell out there he’s a force to be reckoned with.”
Pickering was also thrilled to see his old representative teammate Goodger back on the paddock, saying that he “was glad he only came on with only 20 minutes to go because he just controls it around the park.”
 

Credits: CHRIS COGDALE
chris.cogdale@age.co.nz

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