Hamilton Marist score first Waikato club rugby title three-peat
Hamilton Marist player-coach Ross Filipo, right, celebrates his team's victory at Marist Park. Mark Taylor/Fairfax NZ
It might have been former All Black Ross Filipo's last act as a rugby player in New Zealand and he was quick to deflect the credit.
But the player-coach's leadership was there for all to see as his Lodge City Rentals Hamilton Marist team created Waikato club rugby history in beating Metalco Recyclers University 10-8 to win the Waikato Breweries Shield for a record third season in a row on Saturday.
The hosts' victory on a heavy, rain-soaked Marist Park was hard fought with just a conversion in it in the end after University came storming back from 10-3 down to score their try in the left corner in the 69th minute.
Mark Taylor/Fairfax NZ
Hamilton Marist players celebrate LoniUhila's try against University at Marist Park in the Waikato Breweries Shield final.
No team had ever previously achieved the elusive three-peat of titles in 49 years of Waikato-wide club competition.
For Filipo, in his first season of coaching, it was a case of picking up the reins from Sean Botherway who had guided Marist to the title in both 2013 and 2014.
But his involvement is shortlived after a lucrative professional playing opportunity in France dropped in the 36-year-old's lap out of the blue last week, prompting him to pull out of a planned swansong season for Waikato.
Mark Taylor/Fairfax NZ
Hamilton Marist captain Josh Tyrell holds up the Waikato Breweries Shield after his team won the final against University at Marist Park.
It means he won't be involved with Marist next year but he is keen to return to his relatively new home base of Hamilton after that and renew that involvement.
"It's just an amazing feeling," Filipo said after his team had clinched victory in Saturday's final.
"There are not many firsts in rugby and for our club to achieve this today is just a real credit to the team and obviously the people who have come before who have helped build this amazing group of men.
"I just really came in to a well-functioning club and facilitated this, but there wasn't really too much for myself to do so I'm very proud of the club and the team."
Marist had to withstand enormous pressure from the physical University forward pack, but in the end conceded just the one try thanks to their outstanding defence.
"Defence is what wins finals – it's a cliché but it couldn't be more true. The guys had to dig deep for a while there," he said.
Filipo said the Marist players' heads had dropped for a moment when University replacement prop Tau Koloamatangi had scored his try, peeling on the blind side of a powerful driving maul to make it 10-8, Jason Robertson missing the wide-angled conversion attempt.
"[Team captain] Josh Tyrell, who led bloody well today, told the guys 'lift your heads, look each other in the eye, we've got this'.
"So having that confidence and how he's grown as a leader, he'll take that into ITM Cup, he's going to flourish this year, I think.
"He's turned into a remarkable leader and a really good player," Filipo said.
For University it was a tremendous effort considering their absence of backline stars, cruelly robbed of semifinal standout centre Anton Lienert-Brown, who was not released by the New Zealand Barbarians despite not being selected in their 23 to take on the Maori All Blacks in Auckland on Saturday night.
First-five Robertson did his best to make up for that.
Robertson kicked the students to an early 3-0 lead that was wiped out when another penalty attempt bounced off an upright and Marist winger Niko Malo dashed 80m upfield on the counter, followed soon after by Marist prop LoniUhila's 33rd minute pick-and-go try, following a massive lineout drive.
JonoMalo's conversion and penalty goal took Marist to 10-3 at halftime, Robertson almost single handedly turned the match on its head soon after the restart.
Just four minutes into the second half Robertson spotted space ahead on his left and launched a scorching counter-attack from within his own half, stabbing a kick through to the corner when challenged by the Marist cover defence.
But he never got the chance to follow up that kick when burly Marist second-five Richard Vukula bumped him out of the way – an act that saw Vukula yellow-carded by referee Grant Stuart, who crucially decided not to award a penalty try. It was an extremely close call.
University kept attacking through their forwards, with loosehead prop Joe Walsh leading the way with his powerful ball carrying, but the Marist defence held firm until Koloamatangi's try and then the new triple champions finished the match on attack.
"It's finals footy and you've got to take those chances when you have them," said Roger Randle, who coaches University with Wayne Maxwell.
"Marist probably had less opportunities but they took their chances before halftime, which was a bit of a killer.
"We'd made a lot of the play but found ourselves down 10-3 at halftime and then in the second half there were a couple of key moments there where we could have put them under a lot more pressure."
Randle, who heads to Japan today for a week to work further with that country's sevens side, believed Robertson would have outpaced the cover to score if he had not been illegally taken out but felt the officials did not award a penalty try because he was still 20 metres from the line.
"Marist found ways of slowing our ball down that they got away with, but at the end of the day it didn't come down to any ref's decisions that stopped our attacking flow, it came down to not taking our opportunities and Marist deserved the win because they took theirs," he said.
Marist also won the premier B final for the Rowe Cup, upsetting top seeds Fraser-Tech 17-11 at Mill St on Saturday, while Te Awamutu Sports and United Matamata Sports both chalked up wins against first division opposition in the promotion-relegation series to stake their claims for retaining premier status in 2016.
