National Rugby Championship: Round Eight
Brisbane City claim top spot, Perth Spirit claim fourth place
ESPN Staff
October 11, 2015
Rams were overrun by Spirit © Getty Images
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Greater Sydney Rams 39-63 Perth Spirit

Perth Spirit finished its regular season campaign with a convincing 63-39 victory over the Greater Sydney Rams.

Waratahs No 8 Jed Holloway scored a memorable hat-trick for the bottom-placed Rams, who couldn't keep pace with the in-form Spirit.

The men from the West racked up a half-century of points as early as half-time with Ryan Louwrens, Albert Nikoro and Faamanatu Apineru all registering doubles for the visitors at Concord Oval.

North Harbour Rays 50-32 Queensland Country

North Harbour Rays secured their second win of the National Rugby Championship, scoring seven tries to three, but only after posting the final 29 points of the match to reverse what had seemed to be a likely away win.

Michael Adams and Luke and Josh Holmes each scored two tries for the Rays, for whom back-rower Harry Bergelin was man of the match for a full 80-minute effort in defence and as a vital link man between the forwards and the backs.

Queensland Country opened the scoring with a try to Sef Fa'agase, after which the sides went tit-for-tat for much of the next 50 minutes -Phil Potgieter, James Tuttle and Campbell Magnay touching down for the visitors before the hosts finished over the top of them in the final half-hour.

Luke Holmes, twice, Adams and Sam Lane, who had battled food poisoning in the lead-up to the match, and who had hardly trained all week, scored as the Rays the stronger.

UC Vikings 31-37 Brisbane City

Brisbane City have retained the Horan-Little Shield for a fifth consecutive time and claimed the top of the table spot with tight six point victory over Canberra Vikings.

Starting quickly, the Vikings were on the board within only two minutes with captain Jarrad Butler finding the line, City hit back only minutes later with a try of their own with Pettowa Paraka busting the line and Jake McIntyre adding the extra for City to take a three point lead. City were back over the line twice before the break with Junior Laloifi and Ben Hyne extending the lead 24-5 heading into the break.

The visitors were out the blocks quickly in the second half with Robbie Abel finding the line before the Vikings got some momentum and scored a double with Rodney Iona and Albert Anae over to begin their comeback. But the hosts were unable to chase down City's lead with the visitors scoring another before going down to 14 men in the final minutes, and despite making immediate use of the advantage to close the gap 37-31, the Vikings just weren't able to chase down the total and fell to their first loss of the season.

Andrew Kellaway couldn't hold off the Rising © Getty Images
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Melbourne Rising 23-16 Country Eagles

Melbourne Rising have kept their finals hopes alive with a come-from-behind victory over NSW Country Eagles in Geelong, posting four tries to two in the lowest scoring match of the tournamnet.

The Eagles took advantage of poor discipline to see Tom Sexton under the posts, but the Rising soon got their footing and were in the match after Jonah Placid was over for the hosts' first try; however the missed conversion left the visitors ahead by just three heading into the break.

The Eagles fired the first shot in the second half with Jerome Mackenzie crossing in the corner, pushing the visitors ahead by 11-points. The Rising appeared to get back on the front foot but poor handling and ill-discipline cost them until Dashille Kuata of the Eagles was yellow-carded, after which the hosts took advantage of the man advantage to score through Jordy Reid and Colby Fainfa'a and seal the win.

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