The Westport Club sponsored Port Macquarie Pirates Rugby team resumed their quest for the Mid North Coast Premiership with a strong win over the Southern Cross University Marlins at Stuart Park on Saturday.
The Pirates ran out winners by 66 – 17 but this was not indicative of the fine performance put up by the Marlins. The Marlins were matching the Pirates in both attack and defence until well into the second half when the Pirates steamed away with the game.
Matt Mane, who is showing tremendous form, was the first to cross for the Pirates in the 9th minute after an expansive move from the Pirates back line which saw Sam McNeill playing a major part. The try was converted by McNeil to give the Pirates a 7-0 advantage.
Geoff Lee played a prominent role in the early engagements as did front row partners in Jeremy Brigden and Lucas Wall.
Joel Rabbidge in his first game as Pirates captain was in everything. He was constantly at the breakdown but would then be supporting the backs in both attack and defence. Rabbidge was rewarded with a fine try in the 16th minute with McNeill adding the extras.
Tim Platt was always dangerous when the ball was directed his way. In the 19th minute, Platt called for the ball on the half way line and then in a swathing run, weaved through the Marlins defence and placed the ball under the uprights. McNeil had not trouble adding the conversion.
The Marlins had not given up and still extended the Pirates defence until eventually with a judicious across field kick that found their flying winger, the Marlins were on the scoreboard. The difficult conversion attempt was not successful.
The Pirates responded within a minute with a Lucas Webb try after handy lead up work by McNeill. The converted try had the Pirates leading 28-5.
Marlins came back in the shadow of the half time break with another astute cross field kick that again found a support and the Marlins went to the break trailing the Pirates 28-10.
The second half resumed with the same intensity of the first stanza.
Marlins continued to put good pressure on the Pirates and were rewarded with a penalty try in the 9th minute of the second half. The conversion brought the Marlins well within range of catching the Pirates as they reduced the Pirates lead to 28-17.
Both teams continued to test their opponents defence with exciting attacking forays.
Lucas Wall burrowed over the Marlins line in the 14th minute and with the McNeill conversion skipped away to a 35-17 advantage.Chris Geary who also had an outstanding match troubled the Marlins defence through out the game as well as providing bone shaking defence for the Pirates.
Lucas Webb took the ball from a Marlins kick and ran at the Marlins defence leaving two of their tacklers requiring medical attention from the strength of Webb’s run.
Joel Riddle and John Talamaivao, who came on as replacements combined in the 26th minute to extend the Pirates lead to 40-17.
The 30th minute saw Sam McNeill execute a weaving run through the Marlins defence to link up with Rabbidge who crossed the line. Lucas Wall added the conversion and the Pirates skipped to a 47-17.
As the game progressed Lucas Wall kept improving and combined well with Mick Zucker to cause concern to the Marlins.
In the last ten minutes of the match further tries were scored by Tim Platt, Lachlan Bassett and Joel Rabbidge to take the Pirates to the final score of 66-17. Best for the Pirates were Sam McNeill, Lucas Wall and Lucas Webb though several players were very close to gaining best and fairest points.
Port Pirates Reserve Grade had a very convincing 53- 0 win over the Marlins.
