Battle-scarred Northland show pride in brave losing effort

Up 10 points at halftime, Northland were poised to cause the upset of the round against Waikato until they haemorrhaged a critical 14-points midway through the second spell.
Despite being beaten 27-19 at Waikato Stadium on Saturday the Taniwha showed a pride in the jersey and a corresponding level of skill that made the fifth-placed team - brimming with Super-14 and All Blacks talent - look at times like an unorganised rabble.
It wasn't always pretty but Northland gave it a go and were trying to extend their lead to 11 points in the 56th minute, with their forwards camped on the goal-line for a dozen or so phases before halfback Luke Hamilton decided to give the backs ago.
In hindsight, it proved to be a fatal error as Waikato turned the ball over in the midfield and two passes later speedster Sosene Anesi was headed for the line at the other end.
The Taniwha never gave up but although they trailed by three points until the final minute, they never were able to control the ball like they had in the first three-quarters of the match, instead spending the rest of the match defending their own territory.
The try was a real coach-killer but Northland coach Bryce Woodward was more than proud of his players after the match.
"It was a very good effort, we played with a lot of structure and purpose in that first half and we started off well in the second half ... when players give 100 per cent, even when they don't always get the execution right, you can't be upset," he said.
He said if they had been able to score early in the second spell - when they were really on top - he would have backed them to defend that lead, but Waikato defended desperately and that led to his side making the costly errors.
At the end of the game, the effort of competing against Waikato was apparent. Many of the Northland side were walking wounded.
A neck injury to replacement Matt Harrison, saw the game stopped and he was taken to hospital for an x-ray, while Cam Jowitt took another knock to the head, and was taken off as a precaution. In the end a lack of forward replacements saw centre Nick Collins packing down on the side of the scrum.
"There's a number of players with injuries - in fact it's a war zone in the dressing room at the moment, the list is too long to go into - the boys are beaten up and we've got a six-day turnaround, but we'll have to rise to that and hopefully put up the same sort of performance again over 80 minutes next week," Woodward said.
Northland looked up against it early on and surrendered an early penalty to Stephen Donald, but the visitors quickly turned the tables on the Mooloo men and began to play with real purpose. Munro kicked two penalties and Northland continued to threaten until Derek Carpenter overcooked a kick, and from the resulting scrum set-play, Simon Munro gave Anesi too much space and the speedster scored his first try to give Waikato a 10-6 lead.
Pressure from the restart saw Waikato knock-on and an inside ball to the Taniwha's most potent attacking weapon saw Jared Payne burst through a hole from the scrum. Cameron Eyre continued the move, linking with Carpenter and Holwell to put Damien Fakafanua free to score a great try in the corner.
Munro converted from the sideline and then added two more penalties to take a deserved 19-10 advantage into the break, after Waikato threw everything but the kitchen sink at the visitors in the final five minutes of the spell, trying to narrow the gap.
The visitors started the second spell well and were unfortunate not to score first when Waikato captain Liam Messam, killed the ball in a ruck - instead Australian  referee Andrew Leeds gave a penalty against the Taniwha for trying to ruck him off the ball.
Waikato made the most of the lucky break and Aled de Malmanche was over at the other end moments later, although television replays suggested Taniwha loosie Roy Griffin may had held him up over the line.
Ahead 19-15 Northland searched for a decisive try but instead conceded the vital score to Anesi.
Northland toiled away and trailed by three points until the final minute, when Dwayne Sweeney finally broke down the dogged defence and scored in the corner to earn  Waikato an extremely hard-earned bonus point.