Top 4 Report: St Andrews College

This was the school I was most excited to see come to the Top 4 because I had only really watched them on film and to me they had grown the most since I made my Pre-Season Predictions. I wanted to see what the players were like in person and see what they were really about. STAC had a really good year and I think that they were sometimes inconsistent with how they performed sometimes cause there were some scores that I thought “Man, they just scarped through” when the should have put teams away. So this was my chance to see players live and get a really good look at players in their element of “Do or Die” rugby.

The first thing i didn’t like was that Kinivuwai Veitata the Star No.8 was injured and didn’t play at all and so that was a big bust, also that the STAC team did not show up in the first game. The STAC and St Peters School game was the game I thought yup ok this is going to be the hardest game and so I thought this was going to be a hard fought fight from start to finish AND it would finish with a last second try or Penalty kick, something dramatic like that, yeah that didn’t happen. I have to be honest STAC were terrible, the first two tries were ones that were just dropped balls that ST Peters picked up and ran away for the try, stuff that you couldn’t help. One was the whole line was moving forward and even the fullback was up into the line already and so there was no cover when the ball went to ground and St Peters scooped up and ran in untouched. Those tries yeah you cant help that at all, but then it got worse. I was even saying to myself “That’s all good STAC will get rid of those cob webs and get a few tries back”, yeah that didn’t happen. No matter how hard STAC was trying they just couldn’t get anything going and the wind was in their face and that’s fare to say, but it wasn’t the wind. It was miss tackles, not fighting to secure the ball, scrums for such a good front row was not working right, injuries, just everything was going wrong.

I mean if you were following my updates on my Facebook page, I was typing in the scores and then sending it, put the phone away and push record on my Go Pro and then try again. So reply again, put in the scores and then sending it, put my phone away and get my Go Pro out Push record, TRY. I honestly couldn’t believe that this was the same team I had studied on film, and then halftime blew, COOL!! we will see them with the wind now and they will get back into it, yeah that didn’t happen. Here is when the scoring happened happened about 13 mins till the end of the game, 3 tries to make it 15 BUT if they played well in that last 13 mins they played with the wind, spread the ball and it’s like they just woke up and realized “Oh yeah we’re playing St Peters today yeah?”. I went to the Motel thinking “Nah they cant be this bad, this cant be the same team that put up 50 on St Bedes, that just lost by 2 points to Christchurch BHS, that beat Nelson College 43-42, this cant be them”. So after beating up my broken laptop I wrote down 3 things to watch against Rangitoto College and I’ll share it with you. I made it only 3 things because I didn’t want to expect to much from them in the last game. So it was

1. Is the front row as good as I think they are and is Shilo and Jack Crusader worthy?
2. Can Llew lead the team around?
3. Did they put to much responsibility on Kinivuwai Veitata to win them games?

Before you get to pissed off at me all those question’s were answered. The front row with Jack, Shilo and Jacson were very strong in the scrums and they were the ones beating Rangitoto to that second push. Llew was kicking INTO the wind like there was no wind, he kicked better then everyone at the Top 4. Llew also was very aggressive playing to the line with the ball and also making gaps for the runners to find holes, he was the reason why STAC got off to a great start in their second game. The whole team stood up and made it known that they would win without their Fijian Star and it was really good rugby to watch as well. Shilo must have had around 15 or so hit ups where he was setting guys up and taking the ball to the line and drawing and passing, Jack had some good runs and the 3 front rowers defended the rucks really well. The back line started to fire and even when Rangitoto began to stage a come back they held it strong and fought it out to the last whistle.

STAC lose almost everyone in the team, this team was very old and over 95% Year 13 and not many or if any Young Year 13’s so for next year I dont know how goo they will be.