Tries came in thick and fast during the opening round of the Tyrepower Northland Men’s Premier Rugby competition that saw tit-for-tat battles and lopsided results in equal measure on a pleasant afternoon of running rugby.

Last year’s semifinalist Ngāti Hine Moerewa United Kawakawa continued their stellar form with a massive physical onslaught against hosts Old Boys Marist in Whangārei on Saturday, winning 39 – 32.

The men from the Mid-North dug in their heels in the last quarter and forced OBM to make unforced errors that got them home. As for the men of the match, you couldn’t get past Moerewa’s twin locks Recce Dephoff and Bodene Davis, who put in powerful work in both defence and attack.

The lanky Dephoff has a knack for carving up the best of defences and is indefatigable when defending his line. No. 8 Angus Murray was another standout from the boot of the scrum.

“We like to play that physical game, and Old Boys came out and matched that. It was a really good ding-dong battle,” Moerewa coach Wayne Martin said.

Martin said his players were slow on a couple of things and OBM made them pay for those, but they tidied those areas up and came out firing after the breather.

OBM enjoyed more possession and opted to play a territorial game in the opening half, but unforced errors put paid to those efforts. Moerewa took their opportunities well and had men who could shake things up in the physical stakes.

They also utilised their bench well. Substitute Tevita Havea was a constant menace at the breakdown and the tackled ball area, and his breakthrough on the blindside led to the winning try by flyhalf Warren Dunn with 12 minutes to go.

“We took our opportunities and were on the right side of the ledger at halftime. We had a bit to work on in the second half, tidied up a couple of areas, but it was the first game of the season,” Martin said.

“We brought our bench and they impacted well. In the last quarter, we just had to make sure we retained the ball – and we did – and to try to eliminate their tacklers from getting over the ball on us. They were pretty quick in that area,” the Kawakawa fire chief said.

His team lost a lot of its senior players through injury and retirement, and Martin said it was now time for younger ones from last season to step up.

OBM skipper Jarod Byrnes rued the tough loss in a massively physical game. “I’ll be sore for about a week, I reckon. Little penalties, little knock-ons… it’s early season, it’s fixable.”

In the last quarter, he said OBM tried to get over the line, but it was just those little penalties at the end of the field that let them down.

It’s back to the drawing board next week, and fixing up their defence, being better in the tackled ball area and making sure they come off their line and make the hit will be the things to work on while training.

The club lost a few players this season, but a few debutantes came on board this year, including some from Whangārei Boys’ High School, which Byrnes said was good for OBM because it wanted to develop young players and expose them to high-level rugby.

OBM also have two players from Japan, openside flanker Takahashi Taichi and winger Takuya Saito, who both started Saturday’s match.

Saito latched on to a fumbled pass inside the OBM 22-metre and galloped 80m to score his team’s first try in the second half. The audacious run preceded a Moerewa attack, and once Dunn failed to hold on to a pass, the Japanese speedster needed no second invitation.

Moerewa suffered the ignominy of conceding a try in the opening minute to OBM centre Nathan Salmon, but made up for a horror start after touching down three minutes later in a brilliant blindside move.

OBM was prepared to mix things up – their set piece worked well, and they stretched the Moerewa defence out wide but couldn’t land the killer blows.

Whereas the visitors were patient, kept chipping away, and used their big ball carriers to punch holes in the OBM defence. It worked, for the most part.

Harerei Te Whata ran 60m to score after an OBM kick was charged down on the stroke of halftime, to take the scores to 24 – 10 in favour of the visitors heading into the breather.

There were moments in the third quarter when OBM had Moerewa on the ropes, and even took the lead as poor discipline and frustration crept in for the visitors.

But Moerewa held their nerve, and the reserves came in handy in the last quarter to get the job done.

In the other premier rugby results from over the weekend, defending champions Mid Northern were pipped 29 – 26 by the Western Sharks in Dargaville, Kamo edged Kerikeri 19 – 15, Hora Hora proved too strong for Hikurangi, winning 43 – 10, while Wellsford humiliated Waipū 60-5.

In Division 1, Otamatea narrowly lost to Western Sharks 21 – 22, Kamo defaulted on Kerikeri, Moerewa beat OBM 55 – 21, Waipū accounted for Wellsford 17 – 12, and Hora Hora won comfortably against Hikurangi 56 – 0.