LEAGUE - Saints stunned by Bulls' late surge

A rare victory meant the celebrations at the Northern Wairoa Bulls clubrooms went close to lifting the roof on Saturday night.
Second rower Dallas Mau crashed over to score a match-winning try with time almost up on the clock, to give the Bulls an upset 16-14 win over Ngawha Saints.
Struggling to make himself heard as the party got going in earnest behind him, coach Trident Ratu said the team had finally achieved what they set out to do.
"We're real proud with how we played, we've come a long way to get here and now we'll just assess what we did today and go forward from there," he said.
Ratu said the Bulls had been outplayed in the first half but had still hung in there to win their first game of the season.
"We made a lot of mistakes in the first half and they started to get away from us but we started playing well, got back into the game and then scored two tries in the last 10 minutes to win it."
Trailing 0-6 at the break, the Saints were quickly over again but a Piripi Harding try signalled the start of the comeback for the Bulls. The Saints hit back again to lead 14-6 but a great final spell saw the young Bulls side take the lead through tries to DJ Marsden and finally Mau.
Saints coach Joe Henare predicted last week that the Bulls would soon knock over one of the competition's top teams but was hardly pleased he was proved right so quickly.
"It was just my luck it had to be us," he said ruefully on Saturday.
Henare said the Saints had underestimated their opponents after they had lost the first six games this season on the trot.
"All credit to Northern Wairoa, it was no fluke, they deserved their win today. My guys thought they'd won the game at the gym before the game started," Henare said.
Portland Panthers kept the pressure on leaders Takahiwai with a thrilling 38-28 home win over the Moerewa Tigers.
Portland's hard-hitting defence stemmed the Tigers' early dominance and they ground their way back into the game. The Panthers began to make progress up the middle of the park, leading to tries to Rakana Cook, Henry and Charles Lawrence, and a 14-6 lead at the break.
The home side moved into top gear at the start of the second half and two tries, one a stunning 70m effort by Michael Salase, saw them comfortably ahead before a clever David Norman try gave Moerewa hope.
Norman's kicking game helped the Tigers peg Portland back and a Jason Hape try, followed by a double to Henry Tana, narrowed the gap to 32-28.
The experience of standoff Jackson Katene came through for Portland, however. His inside pass put Dane Guttenbeil in under the posts to dash Moerewa's hopes with five minutes to go.
Kaikohe jumped past Ngawha on the table with a gutsy 20-18 win over Hikurangi at Kaikohe. It was a match of two halves with Kaikohe dominating the first spell and Hikurangi the second, coach Warren McQueen said.
"We were very happy to go the distance in the end. It was a major win for us and it gave the team good reward for all the work we've done," he said.
Bay Slayers coach Jason Smith wasn't going overboard after his side's 130-10 flogging of Marist. Marist continue to struggle with numbers but they never gave up. The loss of coach Kim Komene recently can't have helped matters but, while Saturday's game was a disaster for them, it emphasised the Slayers' progress in the competition.
The team spent the first rounds struggling - like Marist - for numbers but that problem is now behind them.
"With numbers at training we've been able to get on a roll and we'll find out just how much we've improved when we travel to Takahiwai next week," he said.