Hills climb is too steep

Endeavour Hills front-rowers Matthew Paramore, Alesana Matiasi and captain Presley Naea line up for a scrum against Maroondah on Saturday. 31581 Picture: Stewart Chambers

By Stuart Teather
ENDEAVOUR Hills knocked Maroondah off the top of the second division Victorian Rugby Union ladder on Saturday with an impressive 29-10 victory at Frog Hollow Reserve.
The Hills handed their opponents their first loss of the season, coming back from 7-10 down at half-time to overpower the visitors in the second half.
Maroondah went ahead 10-0 early on, but Endeavour Hills secured a late try to stay within touch at the break.
Hills’ coach Jeff Lemalu said the opposition was too strong in the first half.
“We expected that of Maroondah, to come flat out from the start,” he said.
“I think that was part of their plan, to take the young guys out of the game.
“(At half-time) I told them to be patient, I told them to make their first-up tackles.
“I knew they were running wide and I said if we were going to win this game we had to be very physical up front.”
Lemalu put the responsibility for the game onto his forward pack and the big men delivered, overpowering Maroondah in the second half and allowing the Hills to rack up 22 points after the break.
Led by captain Presley Naea, forwards including Matthew Paramore and player of the day Loni Folau got the job done and earned the coach’s praise.
For Endeavour Hills, Paramore, Ben Mafaufauga Taala, Jeremy Nelson, Paul Ioane and Junior Salesulu all ran home tries and Salesulu also had two conversions.
Lemalu said the win went some way to making up for the four-point loss to fellow powerhouse Geelong back in round three.
“I’ve been waiting for this game for the last few weeks after the loss to Geelong, we wanted to test ourselves against the best and we had to play good against Maroondah,” he said.
“It was a very good game, one of the best I’ve seen and it was good for us.”
Meanwhile the Endeavour Hills B-team took on Melbourne University and claimed a 29-5 win.
The league takes a break over the long weekend, but Endeavour Hills will be gearing up for the big battle between its A and B teams in two weeks’ time.