Oceania Under 19s Championships- Vanuatu hold on

Rugby is a game of 2 halves and today it really was, in the first 40 mins Vanuatu was walking all over Tahiti, in the second 40 Tahiti came alive.

In the heat of the day this was a fast and tiring encounter played in a fantastic spirit by two teams that wanted to express themselves. Vanuatu started off so well and with any sniff of ball were chucking it to their backs who used great angles to glide through the defence. In particular was the fullback, he chimed in with cameo runs and sliced them apart at will.

Tahiti started the match well and points were slow to come, then the tempo lifted and it looked like Tahiti would be in for another long day at the office, as their last outing was a 100 pointer. This all changed when their fullback sliced through the Vanuatu centers and just kept running for a fine individual try. This was the injection the boys needed and all of a sudden there was some serious zing in their game.

Scoring their first try in the competition was the medicine for Tahiti, out walked the aching bodies, burning lungs and broken attitude & in walked team spirit, team togetherness and rugby came to the party. They then ran after everything, tackled and mauled well and turned up for every line out first, the whole game all of a sudden had swung their way. This was rewarded with 2 more fine tries and the jubilation of the team and crowd was very lifting.

In the end Vanuatu again went to the backs and made a telling break to secure the victory with another fine try and won 29-19. Tahiti will take pride from the test, they now know why they jumped on the plane to Fiji and that was to have fun and play rugby. The after match scenes were of a championship winning team as they soaked up the good feeling of playing to your potential.