Hi ,

Last Friday saw the start of the NPC competition. My ‘State of Origin” team, Taranaki had a
win against Counties Manakau in Pukekohe and our Lions had a win against Manawatu in
Palmerston North. Taranaki had a quick turnround with a Wednesday game against
Northland in Whangarei. Bay of Plenty had a narrow loss to Auckland after leading a good
deal of the way, along with Hawkes Bay over North Harbour.

The Farah Palmer Cup had our Ladies lose to Hawkes Bay at home, giving the Pride a tough
Season so far.

The All Blacks vs Australia played in Dunedin clearly showed our “B” side not up to the task,
down 3-17 at half time. Thank goodness we had Dane Coles, Aaron Smith and Richie
Mo’unga from the Bench to save the day. The weakness (to my mind) was half and first-five
prior to the change. Having said that, the two starters in those positions will get to play
against Namibia and Uruguay.

We have a Double-Header this weekend at The Fortress.
 

The Tawa Reserve Boys played Wellington in the semi-final of the Allan Seerup Cup at
Lyndhurst, taking it out 22-18. This now sets up our Boys for a FINAL game against Petone
Brotherhood starting 1300hrs at The Fortress.
 

The second matchup is our Tawa Ducks vs OBU Scallywags. What a ride it has been with
OBU. OBU won in our very first game, then we played them again in the first game of the
second round and won. This Saturday at 1445hrs we play them in the Paul Potiki Shield
FINAL! I believe we will be playing OBU again either next week or the week after in the
National U85 competition!!

RESERVE GRADE | Tawa 22 - Axemen 18 | 5 AUGUST

Some interesting results in Formula E with Nick Cassidy taking First and Mitch Evand taking
Second in the last Race the other week.

IndyCars still has a huge amount of Kiwi influence at the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix
last weekend. Scott McLaughlin held Pole to finish secondwith Scott Dixon finishing 4 th .
Marcus Armstrong (who is not racing in all events) came in 13 th , giving him the prime slot as“The Rookie of the Year”.
 

Supercars is once again showing different Leaders and Placegetters, which is good for the Sport. Race 18 on Saturday had Kosteki winning with Mostert 2 nd and Brown 3 rd . Kosteki and Brown race for Erebus Racing, who only a short time ago were probably considered as a possible 2 nd tier Team. Boy, has that changed with these two Chevrolet Drivers constantly at or near the front.Shane van Gisbergen finished a credible 7 th after starting in 20 th position. Sunday Race 19 was even more interesting with van Gisbergen finding his way to his rightful place in First, followed by Heimgartner in second – Kiwis 1 st & 2 nd , both in Chevy Camaros and De Pasquale 3 rd in a blue badge. The Leaderboard is wide open at this stage of the Season, and would be very hard to pick. The Giz and Kosteki are both heading to USA for Nascar Racing. The Giz will also feature in a truck (Ute to us) Race.

The clubrooms will be open so please head down and support the 85s and Reserve Grade in their finals tomorrow.

Allan G Davidson

President

UPCOMING GAMES | 12 AUGUST

We will be live streaming the 85s and Reserve Grade this weekend on Tawa Rugby Live.