Premier Finals Day Report - 26 July

By LINDSAY KNIGHT

Willie Walker ended his long, eventual rugby career by being one of the stars in North Shore’s comprehensive 50-18 win over Massey in the premier one final at QBE Stadium on Saturday to take the ASB Cup.

Walker gave a superb exhibition of goal-kicking with 10 successes from 11 attempts for a personal tally of 25 points, taking his season tally to 171. And he was just as effective kicking in general play, often causing Massey discomfort under the high ball, and with his experience and control at first five-eighths he was the ideal complement to a magnificent, rampant Shore pack.

On this performance Walker, even though he’s 36 years old, probably would be not out of place in the Harbour ITM Cup side. But he confirmed that after Saturday’s win he was now retiring to concentrate on his work as a fire fighter and on his family, particularly his eight and four-year old sons who are now playing in the nursery grades at Silverdale.

“I can’t think of a better way to finish, especially in winning a championship with a great club like Shore,” Walker said.

In his career Walker has played for Harbour (42 games), Otago 15 games), once for Marlborough, for the Highlanders (22 games in 2002-03) and for New Zealand Maori (seven times in 2002-03). He also had an extensive professional career overseas playing in one Heineken Cup final.

But he still derived enormous pleasure and satisfaction playing at domestic club level, with Saturday’s victory his third club championship, the first with Takapuna as a 19-year old in 1997 and the last with Shore three seasons ago. “I think everyone is still passionate about club rugby and what it represents,” he said. “It’s just a pity there isn’t the room for it there once was.”

Shore, indeed, showed all of that passion in what was a red letter day for the club, for earlier the Shore reserves had won the premier two final, beating Takpauna 31-20.

Besides the cool command of Walker, and halfback Luke Hamilton, Shore in the premier final was served by a powerful pack, in which flanker and captain Josh Blucher, lock Brandon Nansen and prop Alex Woonton were leading figures. Woonton scored the first try soon after the kick-off early and from then on Massey, despite a rally in the second quarter, was fighting a losing cause.

It managed to peg the lead back to 16-13 late in the second spell, but just on half-time slumped again to a 23-13 deficit when from the only Walker kicking failure, a penalty attempt which struck an upright, the ball was retrieved for Blucher to score wide out.

Massey’s leading prop Adrian Smith could not start and then early in the match another seasoned prop, Chris Isoua, was injured. The task became even more difficult when in the second spell two loose forwards, Kane Moors and flanker Matthew Howling, each had 10 minutes in the sin-bin.

It was bad luck for the 2013 champion side which for most of this season had been the competition leader. But it would be hard to argue the right of Shore, well coached by former internationals Frano Botica and Gordon Simpson, to be this year’s champion, particularly as the 50-18 win in the final was preceded by a 38-0 semi-final thrashing of Western Pioneers.

The Shore reserves handicapped themselves with several penalty infringements and, after pulling away to a 19-6 lead over Takapuna, actually trailed 20-19 late in the second spell. But Shore always looked the better side, despite the penalties, and two tries in the last 10 minute gave them a five tries to one victory to take the Stuart, named after Jim Stuart, a Shore stalwart and foundation president of the Harbour union in 1985.

Northcote, which finished the season strongly, was rewarded with a 22-7 win over Glenfield, another big improver,  in the Pengelly Cup plate final.

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