Perfect Palmer catapults Waimea into semis

Jayde Palmer put in a performance to remember as his four tries helped Waimea Old Boys to a 50-39 win over Marist at Tāhunanui today.

The game was do-or-die for both sides. The winner was assured of grabbing the final place in the Tasman Trophy semi-finals next weekend while a loss would end the season for either side.

The result means Waimea will travel to Motueka next weekend to play Kahurangi in one semi-final while Stoke – which lost to Moutere 38-31 today – will travel to Blenheim to play Central in the other.

Marist started the stronger of the two teams, pinning the hosts into their own half for long periods of the first 20 minutes. This pressure led to a penalty, which Marist first-five Luke Kilworth converted to open the scoring.

But a 10 minute burst by Waimea saw it score three quick tries to take a 17-3 lead after half an hour, before two late Marist tries saw the scores even at half time.

The second half was also tit-for-tat for the first ten minutes, Palmer scored his second try of the game before Marist scored a try of its own.

Then Waimea caught a lucky break. Tyler Kearns was tackled off the ball and away from the ruck by a Marist player. Obviously annoyed, Kearns punched the tackler in the face while they were both on the ground. The referee blew his whistle, conferred with his assistant referees and awarded a penalty to Marist but no further sanction for Kearns.

It was a pivotal moment as Waimea scored three more tries in the 15 minutes that followed, putting the game beyond Marist at 43-22. A flurry of late tries saw the score balloon to 50-39.

The star of the game was Palmer for Waimea, the centre played down his efforts when speaking with Nelson App after the game but the tries he scored were of the highest quality, shrugging off defenders and using wonderful footwork to create space for himself.

Prompted to talk about his performance, he played it down saying he was just happy the team got the win.

His coach, Scott McKenzie, had a few more words to say about his young number 13.

“He was outstanding, he’s clicking into gear at the right time of the year and he’s starting to really back himself.”

Other strong performers for Waimea were prop Joel Lauvale, flanker Tim Coman and fullback Macca Springer, who’s massive 50/22 punt in the first half earned a round of applause from spectators.