Rams' grand Final cheerleaders

More than 400 Waiheke supporters joined the team at Cornwall Park for an afternoon of welcome, fine, spring weather and 80-minutes of scintillating football.

The only sad news before the start was that season-long right-winger Jake McCook was injured at training and would not be in the line-up. That brought young Josh Williams into the starting 13, and he was to prove an able replacement.

Rams kicked off and Hornets made reasonable use of their first set in possession before putting up the high kick into Rams’ red zone.

Grand final nerves struck and the catch was muffed by Waiheke, leaving two Hornets a free run to first points. With the conversion, Hornets led 6-nil after 90 seconds.

By the crowing of some Howick supporters one might have thought they had taken a 6-point lead within 90 seconds of the final whistle.

Rams' rebuttal was emphatic. It took them a couple of minutes to get their hands on the ball, but then coming over his own quarter-line, Mana Tahapehi dragged in two defenders, reached out through the tackle and let go a one-handed pass to Kyle Foster at full cry to his left.

Kyle added 40 yards to the effort and with three defenders on him fed the ball further left to fullback Jay McDaniel. Jay's scoring was about a definite "that's the nerves settled" as any Rams' supporter could have asked for. The conversion was astray so Hornets held their lead.

Josh Williams’ on his way to the superb try of the final

A high tackle on a Ram 30 yards out straight from the restart saw Hornets penalised and Rams showing they had come to win. Rather than throw the best attack in the league against the second best defence, captain Scott Niwa called on Mana and he duly kicked the two-point penalty to give Rams a 6-point advantage.

On quarter time Rams came up with their second defensive error and the resulting try was an almost exact copy of Cam's effort at the other end. With the conversion it was all square on 12s, but again it seemed to be a spur to Rams who just lifted their game again.

James Aspden was tackled out of play on the left wing, a yard short of the try line, in the 25th minute, but the Rams blood was up and they reckoned they had the wood on the Hornet's right flank defence.

Two lovely draw and pass plays, by Scott and then Kyle, saw James with another chance out wide and he took it well. Rams went to the break 16-12 up. Two better than at the same time in the play-off round.

The calls at half-time were to harden up on defence, complete their sets, target Hornet's right flank, give 40 minutes of good discipline and –  from trainer Lance Hatfield - “score first”.

In the event Rams did pretty much as they were asked, but the targeting of any particular part of Hornet’s defence got lost in the workload and they just targeted what they came up against.

A darting run by Mana from short range four minutes after the restart gave Lance what he asked for and the lead stretched to 10 points. But two minutes later a bit of silliness from a couple of players about a Howick head-high tackle on a Ram saw both teams down to 12 players.

Peter Watkins gave Howick a taste of his power-running with some big swerves thrown in on his way to stretching the lead to 16 points on the quarter hour. But then a concerted effort by the second best attack in the competition finally managed to battle a well-earned try from pure driving effort - arguably the only team to have done so this season.

How much toll that took only the Howick players will know, but the rest of their match must have been soul-destroying with Rams all still full of running and enterprise.

Cam’s second try came on the half-hour, and then three minutes later Josh rewarded his call-up with a sublime 40-yard effort that had the Waiheke supporters roaring.

Into the dying stages Rams remained rampant and the Hornet’s defence had become a bit desperate. With a minute of normal time remaining, Hornets’ conceded a penalty right in front and ten yards out.
Business to the end, Scott asked Mana to take the two points. He did and the final was over.
Both teams, players and staff, admitted it was their toughest match of the season and also their best efforts. This scribe couldn’t argue with that.

As one of only two teams in ARL competition to complete the season unbeaten, and with  huge points scored to a conceded differential, the VideoEzy Waiheke Rams 2008 have set a superb standard as players, individuals and for the club they call “family”.

It will be a hard call deciding who gets what at prize giving, but there should be some rather easier ones for the powers that be at the ARL wrap-up.