Kearsney bags double win against DHS

KEARSNEY College’s first team wins in rugby and hockey rounded off a successful day against DHS on Saturday, 2 May.

DHS kicked off with both teams seeming tentative initially. Centre, James Tedder, opened the Kearsney score with a penalty from a scrumming infringement by the visitors. The first half produced early penalties each from place-kickers, Tedder and Simpson, respectively for a 10-6 lead to the visitors. Kearsney played some outstanding team play to take a half-time lead of 20-10.

Kearsney opened their second half account with right winger, Cian Waugh, collecting a poorly-executed clearance kick by DHS. The visitors fought back after good phase play and tremendous patience to eventually score an unconverted try in the left corner.

Kearsney then started to dominate the match, however, and soon thereafter flyhalf, Cameron Ritchie, out-sprinted the defence to score in the left-hand corner, courtesy of a Josh van Vuuren turnover. The ever-reliable Tedder converted for a 41-15 scoreline. Kearsney’s next try resulted from a quick tap penalty, which Tedder carried well. From the ruck, scrumhalf Brendan Vorster sniped around the fringes for a well-deserved try. Tedder converted for a 48-15 lead.

The last try of the match was scored by winger, Waugh, for a personal hat-trick on his return from injury. Lock, Jared Meyer, intercepted an attempted offload on the DHS 22m line and scrumhalf Vorster made a good break to feed fly-half Ritchie, who sent Waugh in near the right hand corner. Once again Tedder was successful with the conversion and Kearsney was victorious at 55-15.

Outstanding players for Kearsney were Tedder, Ritchie, Van Vuuren, Meyer, Croshaw, Dixon and Waugh.

In hockey news, Kearsney’s first side had a good outing against DHS on Saturday. The first couple of minutes saw DHS come out with a lot of energy and Kearsney slowed the game down and settled. Kearsney scored a number of clean non-confrontational goals starting from the back, ending off with their strikers tapping the ball in. The half-time score was 5-0 in Kearsney’s favour.

The hosts went back out for the second half with a positive mindset, to keep pushing and play positively with an attractive style of hockey. The boys were able to score a further six goals in the second half, ending off with a final score of 11-0.

Credit went to the Kearsney strikers, who are sometimes criticised for not converting opportunities up front, but on Saturday they stepped up and were clinical in front of goal.