WHAT WENT ON 29 - 30 May

Mercantile Squash
After a week off, Mercantile was back with another great round of matches. Smithy Motorcycles are setting the pace at the top of the table, but there are many teams following closely behind! Check out the results from last Friday and the current points table below.

Smithy Motorcycles bt. Emergency Smash Services 12 - 6
Farmlands bt. The Wishing Stars 13 - 12
Pickering Cabinet Makers bt. Slort Sports 12 - 9
Pensioners bt. Racket Squad All Hui 15 - 9

Junior Rugby, Senior Netball and Senior Rugby all had a weekend off due to King's Birthday Weekend.

Senior Football
For round 8 QRS Athletic Football hosted top of the table Wainui Sharks at Bayleys Athletic Park. Athletic started strongly on as Wainui looked to get on the board early, but Athletic's backline of Aaron Ioane, Jason Smith, Mike Hardie, and Grant Young showed resilience, disrupting Wainui's play and managing to hold off for a good 15-20 minutes before one slip-up allowed the Sharks to get on the board. Athletic found 2nd gear however and saw themselves in an attacking opportunity when Jared Olsen passed to captain Ben Blake, who struck from a distance to find the bottom left of the goal and getting the equaliser for Athletic. Athletic continued to perform courageously and gave themselves a few more opportunities to capitalise, but to no avail. It was Wainui taking a 2-1 lead into halftime. The second half begun and after a brilliant first half performance, Athletic's players felt the fatigue and pressure kicking in. On the other side, Wainui continued calmly and executed their gameplay accurately, scoring fast to get out to a 5-1 lead. Athletic kept fighting trying to get something back until the final whistle. A dozen or so heroic saves from keeper Mark Anderson even managed to put pressure on Wainui's penalty taker, who hit the cross bar! The lads dug deep with an honourable performance against a top-quality side in near perfect playing conditions. Final score: QRS Athletic Football (1) vs Wainui Sharks (5). Goal scorers: Ben Blake. Player of the day: Mike Hardie.

Thanks to the lads Carlos and Marek who answered our call to fill in while we were short on numbers, and thanks to Aaron and Chris for playing before putting in a shift at work. Big thanks to Andy and Sandy for the food, it was amazing, Wainui couldn't get enough of it.

Next weekend, Athletic are away at Childers Road Reserve 2 to face Pro Roofing Thistle, kickoff at 2:45pm.

Pictured below: QRS Athletic Football post match.