Police go on top as Teachers' stumble

The penultimate round of league action kicked off at National Sports Centre on Sunday. 

Renegades had already secured the Ladies league title while all was still to play for the in men’s division, with Teachers having the opportunity to win the league if results went their way.

Ladies

Mariners 8, Police 1

The ladies action saw Mariners beat Police eight tries to one in what proved to be an open, free flowing and exciting game. 

Heather Wearmouth, Amanda Swan (2), Gina Newson (2) Lisa Henderson and Neeks Borden scored the opening tries for Mariners. 

Mika Tomita pulled one back for the Police before Michelle Hicks rounded off the scoring with an arching 50 metre run to dot down in the corner.

Teachers 2, Renegades 1

In the second ladies’ game, the much-improved Teachers team finally inflicted a well-deserved victory over the previously unbeaten Renegades. 

Teachers took the lead through Katie Wright

She side-stepped her way through some uncharacteristically flimsy centre field defence by the Renegades to notch the opening score. 

Melissa Field put Renegades on even terms just before halftime, diving in at the corner. 

Teachers started the second half much like the first, taking an early lead through Marie-Pierre Baudoin. 

The game was to finish 2-1 to Teachers as Renegades had no further response to the impressive outfit in red.

Men’s

Police 36, Mariners 5

The men’s action kicked off with Mariners taking on Police. 

The Boys in Blue knew they had to win to keep themselves in the title hunt and duly took the lead through a Durnferd Davis interception. 

Mike Kane was on target with the extras. 

However, the early Police pressure soon relinquished as Mariners fought their way back into the game and were rewarded with a try by Soniko Thomas in the corner.  The conversion went close but not over and Police found themselves in a harder game than they might have thought at 7-5. 

With half time approaching, Police increased the lead once again with the impressive Darren Richardson barging his way over. 

Kane couldn’t add the extras as the boys in blue headed into half time with a 12-7 lead.

The half time team talk by the Police coach and captain must have stirred them up as they soon took control of the second half, running in a further four unanswered tries and gain a valuable bonus point. 

Darren Richardson added to his first half score with a similar effort in the second half, whilst further scores were to come from John Jackson and David Pringle (2) as the Police team clearly upped the pace in the second.  

Pringle added two conversions with the boot to give the Police a 36-5 victory over Mariners and put them temporarily top of the league.

Teachers 11, Renegades 11

Having seen Police win with a bonus point, the pressure was on Teachers to claim a victory over Renegades to move back to the top of the league. 

However, the black and whites did not roll over and made life difficult for the defending champions.  Teachers took an early lead through a Greg Fraser penalty, however, this was soon cancelled out by the Renegades fly-half Phil Hall. 

Renegades would double their lead to 6-3 through another Hall penalty and Teachers were made to pay further when they failed to deal with a bouncing ball in the their try area, allowing Neill MacGuiness to controversially touch down. 

With the conversion missed, Teachers pressured the Renegades try line and almost went close before halftime however winger Ellison could not quite make the line. 

Renegades went in at the half with an 11-3 lead.

Similarly to the first game, Teachers came out much improved in the second half but still struggled to get their rhythm together and breach the solid Renegades defence. 

Good work on the ground and some terrific tackling kept the Teachers at bay before Greg Fraser managed to squeeze over in the corner. 

A Shauntino Simmons penalty was soon to follow and with the game tied at 11-11, but there would be no more scoring and so the points were shared. 

Teachers’ draw and Police’s bonus point victory, means Police top the table by a single point with one game to go. 

And the two top teams play this Sunday in a winner takes all clash at 3:30pm at National Sports Centre. n