A 17-minute assault by invaders the Counties Manukau Heat blew away the Hawke’s Bay Tui’s chances of starting a Farah Palmer Cup women’s premiership rugby campaign with an upset win at McLean Park, Napier.
Counties Manukau made it two-from-two in the 2024 NPC with a 36-32 win, but the home side had scored first and led 17-10 at halftime. It was happy-hour time as they did not relinquish the lead until the 63rd minute, as the Heat scored their second of four tries in the second half, and the Tui struck back admirably with two tries after being down 36-20 with nine minutes to go.
While being outscored six tries to five, it was, however, as good a Tui performance as any in 2023, when newly-promoted Hawke’s Bay beat eventual champions Auckland Storm in the opening match and went on to reach the semifinals.
Having had the bye in the opening round, the Tui started underdogs after being hammered 63-24 by Counties Manukau in Pukekohe last winter.
Despite three new faces in the starting line-up, and with two losses in warm-up games, the Tui opened with a promising look, including an all-women’s Super Rugby front row hooker Tamia Edwards and props Denis Aiolupotea and Tori Iosefo.