Gurias cruise to victory over Helas

 THE Rabaul Gurias beat the Hela Wigmen 32-12 at the Kalabond Oval in Kokopo in Round 16 of the Digicel Cup rugby league competition yesterday.

After a shaky start to the game, Gurias managed to pull through and dominated the second half to claim a 20-point win.

The Wigmen led by two points in the first half but could not handle the speed and defence displayed by the Gurias and to make matters worse all their three tries were unconverted.

Gurias drew first blood seven minutes into the game when Nelson Daplen brushed off a would-be defender to dive over for the first four-pointer. Francis Paniu converted the try.

WartovoPuara Jr took off from his dummy half, bouncing off two Wigmen defenders to the try line to extend the lead but Paniu failed to add the extras.

Wigmen winger, Oliver Keri struck back after capitalising on some shoddy defence. Andrew Ipi missed the conversion for a 10-4 score line.

Wigmen put two Joe Kema tries before half time to take the lead. 

In the second stanza, everything went against Wigmen as Gurias scored four consecutive tries to seal the game at 32-12.

Wigmen trainer Gigmai said they started off slowly but picked up in the last 15 minutes of the first half. 

“We didn’t play according to game plan and they always have strong second halfs, we could not contain them,” Gigmai said.

“We’re still hoping to make the top five. 

“It won’t be easy but we can win our last two games and get 18 points and then we’ll see.”

Gurias 32 (N Daplen, W Puara Jr 2, B Simon, D Patrick, A Bangas; Paniu 4 con) Wigmen 12 (O Keri, J Kema 2).