Central surrender lead in last minute

Craig Tiriana | 16th March 2010

CLUB RUGBY LEAGUE

Rotorua's Jason Walker was never one to shy away from a challenge on the football field.

And despite the 38 year-old former New Zealand Maori and Northern Districts player having hung up his playing boots, the new Central premier coach's challenging footy days are far from over.

"I needed a new challenge and the club's gone through some hard days," Walker said at Puketawhero Park on Saturday.

"We didn't even have a premier side last year," he added following his side's last minute 38-34 loss to Tauranga Whalers in the new Tri Regions premier club competition.

Central led for most of the game, scoring six tries and holding a 12-point lead at one stage when winger Pesini Tarako outflanked the defence on the right hand side and ran in under the posts for hooker Delano Mareto to kick one of his five conversions.

When Central's Mina Phillips ducked under the defence for his second try, pushing Central out to 34-26 in the final quarter, it looked like Walker's side would celebrate a win alongside their reserve grade clubmates.

But they were guilty of not putting the game away and Whalers made them pay with barging centre Matt Samuels scoring three tries, while kicker Mauhanga Tonga landed two sideline conversions for the four point win.

Walker was philosophical about the result.

"I'm not too disappointed, especially with such a young team. Quite a few of the guys just came up from the under-17s last year," he said.

"There was some improvement out there but like everybody else, we want to make the play-offs.

"This was a game I thought we could win. Credit to Tauranga, they didn't stop and kept going for the full 80min utes and finally got on top."

While still looking fit enough to play, Walker prefers a straight coaching role to that of player/coach.

"It's better from the sideline, you miss a lot when you're on the field. It's easier to break it down from here," he said.

Central's inexperience was shown in that last 20 minutes as they didn't use a tactical kicking game to keep Tauranga pinned at their end of the field, preferring to run the ball into traffic, but turning over possession and delivering the room to Samuels, which helped keep Whalers unbeaten after two competition rounds.

Also stacking up another win were Coastline champions Otumoetai Eels and Tokoroa-based clubs Forestland and Pacific while Rotorua's Ngongotaha scored their first.

Eels went on the road to Gisborne to beat Paikea Whalers 34-14, Pacific had a no show with Whakatane defaulting while Forestland took out a thriller 12-8 against Pikiao.

The Rotorua side led 8-0 just after halftime but the Falcons rallied in scoring 12 unanswered points. Ngongotaha travelled to Turangi and beat the hosts 44-18.

In reserve grade Otumoetai, Taupo Phoenix, Pikiao, Pacific and Central were winners.