The Hillcrest U14’s won 24 -19 against St Pauls. The team have had numerous players off sick and with 5 minutes before starting time we only had 14 players. Thankfully, a player who has been sick turned up just before the game started. This meant that we could start with a full team, although a lot of them were still unwell and there were no reserves.
Before we new it, St Pauls had put on 12 unanswered points early in the game, mainly due to poor tackling. That must have been a wake up call for Hillcrest, as they put on 17 unanswered points and were leading 17 – 12 at half-time.
During the 2nd half Hillcrest scored a converted try and it wasn’t until late in the game that St Pauls scored a converted try. St Pauls spent the last few minutes of the game attacking Hillcrest’s ‘line’, so it was a fantastic effort by Hillcrest to hold them out, especially with so many unwell players.
Although most of the team played well, standout players were Fergus Schumacher, Josh Edwards and Connor Brodribb.
Try scorers were;  Matt Watkins, Josh Edwards, Huw Elias & Fergus Schumacher. Fergus was also successful with 1 conversion, as was Sonny Rau with a very wide out conversion and only just missing another.
The next game is against Taumaranui at Hillcrest next Saturday.
Mark Eldridge