Northland Taniwha No 7 Matt Matich makes a break during the team’s heartbreaking loss to Bay of Plenty in Whangārei on Friday night. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Northland 26 - Bay of Plenty 32.
The Northland Taniwha team must be wondering when it’s going to get a break this NPC season.
The problem is, if it does come, it will be too late to make the quarter-finals after a fairly promising season.
The Taniwha have had two good wins so far, against strong teams in Tasman and Hawke’s Bay, and a draw against Southland.
But it has also suffered some close losses, firstly to Manawatū and on Friday night to Bay of Plenty at home under the lights.
That last-minute loss to Manawatū was marked by a suspicious pass that led to one of their tries in the second half.
And despite that, the Taniwha almost had the game wrapped up with Dan Hawkins slotting a penalty in the 71st minute to have them ahead 26-25 after a real ding-dong battle between the two sides.
But again, a late onslaught saw the Steamers score a try with time almost up to steal the game.
It was a cruel end to the game for Northland, who had done a tremendous effort in getting to position where they could win the game, against a spirited BOP side. It wasn’t the best rugby ever seen at the park, but both teams made a good contest of it as they swapped the lead several times.
Northland had the perfect start to the game. Kicking off towards the city end of Semenoff Stadium, it took the Taniwha just over two minutes to get on the scoreboard, with Tamati Tua diving over. The TMO confirmed the try and Rivez Reihana got the conversion in off the posts for an early 7-0 lead.
After five minutes BOP got a penalty 26 metres out after some scrappy play to make it 7-3.
A Bay player ruled offside saw the first kickable Taniwha penalty and Reihana knocked it over from 32 metres out to make it 10-3. It was then a real arm-wrestle. After the 16-minute mark, BOP were given another penalty, but it floated just to the right of the posts.
Shortly afterwards Bay of Plenty were hammering away at the Taniwha line but the defence was resolute, until No 8 Jonah Mau’u was shown a yellow card for an infraction in the ruck and he was sent to the bin for 10 minutes.
This sparked BOP into action and not surprisingly, they took the scrum from the penalty, hoping to take advantage of the one-man advantage.
Northland did well to contain the Steamers after that, with some stout defence. But Northland were unable to contain the BOP rolling maul , resulting in the Steamers’ first try of the night. Wharenui Hawera missed the conversion and Northland were still ahead, just, at 10-8 after 22 minutes.
Much of the next few minutes was taken up by kicking duels - in fact both teams kicked it away too often for my liking.
At the 25-minute mark Northland were awarded another penalty, which was knocked over to make it 13-8 to the Taniwha.
After 27 minutes Mau’u was back from the naughty chair, probably very relieved that BOP had not managed to pull away and there was not too much damage done while he was off the field.
On 29 minutes BOP No 10 Lucas Cashmore went down injured in a ruck and play was halted for several minutes while he was treated. The break was likely welcomed by both sets of players after a hectic start to the game on a pleasant evening, but Cashmore had to be helped from the field and took no further part in the match.
Losing your starting half could have affected the men from Bay of Plenty, but they quickly hit back.
On 31 minutes the Steamers were camped on the Northland tryline hammering away when the Taniwha defence parted like the Red Sea and BOP scored, with the conversion making it 13-15.
But the Taniwha were not going to sit back and give up and a penalty on 34 minutes saw the men in Cambridge Blue restore the lead at 16-15. It looked like they would hang on to take the lead into the sheds, but BOP hit back with a converted penalty a minute from the halftime hooter to make it 16-18 to the men in blue and yellow.
The game was there for the taking and it seemed like whichever team could get some momentum going would take the spoils.
But the first 13 minutes or so of the second stanza was marred by some poor play by both teams, knock-ons and little mistakes, and more kicking duels.
On 59 minutes the Taniwha attack got some good play going, with a kick over the top regathered by centre Heremia Murray to score under the posts. The conversion took Northland back to the front at 23-18.
It was a tough, tight affair from then as both sides huffed and puffed to try to get some dominance.
But on 65 minutes, and in possibly the key moment of the game, BOP got the ball out to its left flank, from a ball that could be described as marginal at best, and were away to score in the corner. The conversion was missed and it was 23-25 in BOP’s favour.
No doubt there’ll be some talk about momentum of the ball etc, but each time the replay was shown on the big screen the boos from the crowd made it known what they thought of the pass.
It could have been the catalyst for Northland to drop their bundle, but they stayed staunch, and on 71 minutes Dan Hawkins converted a penalty from 22 metres out to restore the Taniwha lead at 26-25.
It was obviously going to be a hard-fought finish from there as both teams were determined to finish the game off. But it was Bay of Plenty who got the match-winning try a couple of minutes from the end that was converted to take the game.
If Northland had won, they would have had an outside chance of making the quarter-finals - all they would have had to do was beat Auckland away next week - but it’s now got little to play for in the big smoke other than pride, and a chance to beat the Aucklanders for only the second time in the NPC.
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