CBS Canterbury Division 1

5 Aug 2009

The CBS Canterbury Trophy is fast-becoming one of the best on record after an exciting round last weekend.

Christchurch’s 20-19 win against Linwood was tight and could have gone either way. Burnside’s must-win 17-15 victory against High School Old Boys was equally as tight and it has all set up a wonderful last round.

Christchurch now leads the table on eight points, followed by Linwood and Burnside on five points, with only High School Old Boys out of the running.

The table means that Christchurch will need to beat Burnside this week to confirm its place in the final. Likewise, Burnside will need to beat the red and blacks to confirm its place in the final. Linwood meanwhile is in a reasonably strong position. If they beat High School Old Boys they will be in the final regardless of the other match. Effectively therefore we have two semi-finals.

Christchurch and Linwood were expected to offer one of the clashes of the season after both sides had been in an excellent vein of form and that’s what happened:

“We played pretty well, although there are certainly aspects of our game that we have to work on this week,” Christchurch’s highly-rated co-coach Brad Mooar says. “Linwood had obviously been flying high and we knew that they would be determined to beat us after we had beaten them in the Cup round-robin.”

Brad says that his side had plenty of opportunities and that as a result they regularly pushed the pass. He says, however, that with Tim Priest kicking the goals they managed to get home, although they know that Burnside this week will present another real challenge.

Brad says that like other clubs losing their Canterbury players has been difficult for it, although they had planned in advance. “Luckily we had Sam Monaghan released last weekend for us, although the guys who have come in have really stepped up and played well.”

He says injuries are more of a problem for coaches at this time of the season as they cannot be planned for. “Thankfully we do not have any major injuries at the current time though.”

Ground 1 is closed for today July 29th