Published on Matangi Tonga (https://matangitonga.to)

Home > Mate Ma'a Tonga wins first RLWC match

Mate Ma'a Tonga wins first RLWC match [1]

Sydney, Australia

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 20:16.  Updated on Friday, June 13, 2014 - 19:13.

Tonga's impressive Michael Jennings. Photo by Colin Whelan.

Tonga's Mate Ma'a Tonga, national rugby legue team beat Ireland 22-20 last night at Paramata Stadium, Sydney, Australia.

It was Tonga first game in this year's Rugby League World Cup competition.

The Mate Ma'a Tonga forwards appeared to be heavier and gave the Irish some big hits but during the course of the game illegal tactics crept in and the British referee Steve Ganson twice reduced the Mate Ma'a Tonga to 12 men by sin-binning Esi Tonga during the first half and Feleti Mateo in the second half.

Michael Jennings. Photo by Colin Whelan.

At half time Tonga was leading 12-10.

In the dying minutes of the game, the Irish were leading 20-18 but a late try by Esi gave the Mate Ma'a Tonga the victory.

The Mate Ma'a Tonga coach Jim Dymock was reported to have said that they did well to win, "but I thought our execution was pretty poor."

Cooper Vuna try for Tonga. Photo by Colin Whelan.



Scary faces from Tongan sipitau. Photo by Colin Whelan.
Mate Ma'a Tonga [2]
Rugby League [3]
Rugby [4]

This content contains images that have not been displayed in print view.

Source URL:https://matangitonga.to/2008/10/28/mate-maa-tonga-wins-first-rlwc-match

Links
[1] https://matangitonga.to/2008/10/28/mate-maa-tonga-wins-first-rlwc-match [2] https://matangitonga.to/tag/mate-maa-tonga?page=1 [3] https://matangitonga.to/tag/rugby-league?page=1 [4] https://matangitonga.to/topic/rugby?page=1