Ruthless Tākaka crush bewildered Blues

Kicking off at the same time as Collingwood, Tākaka hosted Nelson in their Division 2 fixture. But, from first to final whistle, they were the most ungenerous hosts crushing their visitors 74-0. The scoreline was not at all flattering; the home side were solid in defence, strong in the tackle, quick on the break and utterly ruthless for 80 minutes.

The rout began with one minute on the clock, when Chris Oakden – one of nine different try scorers on the day – streaked away to ground the ball directly under the posts. Skipper Tom BassettEason converted – the first of 10 points he would score with his right boot.

Minutes later Tyler Palmer added a further five points, and his skipper another two. Just seven minutes into the match, Tākaka were already 14-0 to the good and they maintained a scoring rate of over one point per minute throughout the remainder of the first half, thanks to tries from Oscar Chubb, Wade Vickery, Riley Oakden, Justin

Davis, and another from Palmer. When the ref blew for half-time, Tākaka had a 45-0 lead. The second half must have seemed like Groundhog Day for the visitors; almost straight from the restart, Blake Cottle scored adding another five points to the home side’s tally. To their credit Nelson kept plugging away and got within touching distance of the try line on one or two occasions. But Tākaka held firm before turning defence in to attack in the most devastating fashion; in a seven-minute scoring frenzy around the mid-point of the second half the home side added 17 points to take the score to 67-0.

At the other end of the pitch, with time running out, Nelson looked certain to score a consolation try but were thwarted by Alex Oakden who put in a crunching tackle to keep his side’s clean sheet. And then to rub salt into the wound, Palmer scored his third try of the match, McKinley converted, and the scoreboard clicked over to read 74-0. Speaking immediately after the match, Tākaka co-coach Hamish Hills said he was “super proud” of his players. “The boys did well. Our structures were outstanding.” And he was delighted that Tākaka prevented the opposition from scoring, highlighting the trysaving tackle late in the match. “Alex Oakden shows the heart of this team.”