West Harbour’s Alofa Alofa celebrates with Southern Districts playmaker Ben Volavola on Saturday night. Photo: Jeremy Brennan.

by Brendan Bradford –

In terms of good weekends, it doesn’t get much better than this one for Jed Holloway and Ben Volavola – even if Sunday morning started out a bit dicey.

The two Waratahs and Southern Districts stars cut their post-Super Rugby celebrations short on Saturday night before backing up for the Rebels in a 38-36 boil-over win against Eastwood at T.G. Millner on Sunday afternoon.

Holloway, the Southern Districts skipper, scored a runaway try and flyhalf Volavola tallied 18-points with the boot as the Rebels set-up a semi-final match with Sydney University next weekend while simultaneously knocking Warringah out of the competition after the Rats lost to Uni on Saturday.

In scenes reminiscent of his Waratahs teammate Bernard Foley the night before, Volavola stepped up to kick what turned out to be the match-winning penalty with just minutes remaining on the clock.

“When he blew the whistle for the penalty, my mind just went straight back to last night,” said Volavola.

“But just like Nard (Foley), I think you just have to go through the routine you do at training and when it feels good off the foot, you just hope it goes over. I just hit it and if it feels good, I look up for a second then turn around – Nard does the same thing.”

Southern Districts captain Jed Holloway. Photo: Carl Peterson.

Volavola and Holloway were both signed by the Waratahs after Southern Districts made a stunning run to the Shute Shield Grand Final in 2012 and say the experience of winning the Super Rugby title has given them added motivation at club level.

“To be honest, I didn’t really take this game too seriously throughout the week – I was just thinking about the Waratahs, but seeing the emotions in the playing group last night and how hard they wanted it, it made me really want to win a championship,” Volavola said.

“Last night’s emotions took me through this game. I’ve never felt anything like what I did last night and I’m just hungry to go all the way and hopefully we can do that here.”

Holloway, who made his Super Rugby debut against the Western Force last year and has four Waratahs caps to his name, also used the win as inspiration in a back and forth battle with Eastwood.

“Being a part of it but not being in the team, you strive for it yourself and it’s something I said to the boys before today’s game after seeing how good everyone at the Waratahs felt last night,” he said.

“We translated that in the first 20-minutes, but took the foot off the pedal and Eastwood are a good side and they came back at us. I huddled the boys together with about 14 to go and said we need to have a crack at these guys and luckily we got through.”

It was tit-for-tat in the first 40-minutes as Southern Districts took a 25-17 lead into the break before Eastwood scored three unanswered tries for a 36-28 advantage with 12 minutes to play. Apo Latunipulu finished off some nice work from the elusive Afa Pakalani to narrow the gap to one before Volavola’s penalty put the Rebels ahead.

With a minute left on the clock, Eastwood had a chance to steal the lead back with a long-range penalty, but Tom Hill hooked his effort wide.

Southern Districts play the Students at University Oval next weekend while Eastwood, who lost Ben Batger to what is believed to be an ACL injury, take on Manly at the Village Green.

Southern Districts 38 (Jed Holloway, Chris O’Reilly, Apo Latunipulu, Paul Asquith tries; Ben Volavola 3 con, 4 pen) bt Eastwood 36 (Jarred Barry, Pat Sio, Mick Snowden, John Grant, Jai Ayoub tries; Tom Hill 3 con, Ben Batger 1 con,1 pen).