Otago Whalers win Rugby League Game By Narrow Margin

An opening round of the South Island premier rugby league competition  was played between the Southland Rams and Otago

Photos thanks to Dave Loudon Photography.

Otago and Southland players are no strangers to each other with players on both sides having met during the combined Otago / Southland competition earlier in the season.

The Rams opened the scoring with a try just 10 minutes in to the game and they successfully converted it .

The Whalers were hot on their tail and punched through a try 5 minutes after that , but missed the conversion kick . The Whalers went on to score two more tries in the first half , bringing the half time score to : Whalers 14 Rams 6 .

The Rams had to play catch up in the second half . The Whalers scored tries very early in the second half followed on by the Rams gaining another try. The rest of the game panned out fairly evenly with both teams going try for try.

However when Dunedin Referee Mike Rangihaka blew the full time whistle the score was Whalers 26 and Rams 22.

Try Scorers for the Whalers : Teriapii Taia , Willie Time , Owen Draper , Jong Hoon Lee and Marcel Taani all scored a try each .

Conversions for the Whalers : Louis Tili ( 3 )

Try Scorers for the Rams : Ramera Chambers , Daniel Low , Tuki Hiko and Silvanus Raimona  all scored a try each .

Conversions for the Rams : Sam Taukiri (3)

It was a fast flowing game  played in a clean manner  before a good crowd of supporters and spectators . There was some “ interesting “ predictions from the sidelines ! The Rams effective training and practices drew them close to a win . The Rams are of to Greymouth later in the week to play the West Coast Chargers at Greymouth – Hoping for a win and certainly no rain ! Otago Whalers have the bye next weekend .

Dave Loudon

Southern Rugby League

INVERCARGILL