Taihape had just scored their sole try after a good rolling maul was finished off by hooker Gabriel Hakaraia, who swapped from prop in one of many positional changes for the depleted hosts.
That meant halfback Kahl Elers-Green had an extremely difficult conversion – on a wide angle, in wet weather, with a loud helicopter just above his line of vision and the rotors creating high wind down-force right onto the field.
Elers-Green calmly took his time and slotted the kick, and just how priceless those two points would prove became clear at fulltime.
Kaierau, at sixes and sevens themselves with multiple injured representative players still being rested, got to play some of their lateral attacks for most of the second quarter of the game.
Skipper Ethan Robinson had made a series of surging line-breaks, and so on an attacking scrum Kaierau ran a smart play by using him as the dummy runner to pull in Taihape’s midfield, leading to second-five Patrick Hiscox putting Lalanabaravi through the gap for the try.
Kaierau then briefly took the lead in the 56th minute after fullback Sheldon Pakinga snatched an intercept, and the visitors worked to the tryline where their other winger Peniani Waqatabu got low to swerve through and score.
But as the rain came down, once again Taihape just stuck to the task of honest toil, and they got enough territory for Elers-Green to slot consecutive three pointers.
Crucial for the home side, when Kaierau worked their way back into the attacking 30m zone with about six minutes left, the tackles were made and no kickable penalties were conceded – the challengers finally coughing up the ball twice and running out of clock.
Once again, the dirty workmen in flanker Sam Reeves, No8 Matt Brown, and prop Hoani Woodhead were outstanding in the wet, while Luke Whale again showed his versatility by covering first-five.
“I guess you could say defence won it for us today, especially in that last 10-15 minutes, the boys really stood up,” said coach Sefo Bourke.
“It’s always been a work-on for us, that discipline, but in those moments we really stood up today, so that’s really good.
“Obviously, we saw their team and they saw our team and there was some walking wounded out there that could be playing but aren’t.”
Taihape are now back on track after avenging their loss in the first round to Kaierau, having also now beaten both top two sides after previously losing to the teams that are currently fifth and sixth.
“That is quite a funny thing – I guess the level that you play at when you play the likes of Border, and the likes of Kaierau, Marist, we’ve been in those battles over the last years [and] the boys lift for those sort of games,” said Bourke.
Kaierau coach Danny Tamehana was looking forward to getting some fit bodies back after King’s Birthday weekend, as his team’s buffer on the points table from third place has been eroded.
“It’s going to be a dogfight now, for that top four.
“We’ve just got to come and hopefully get some troops back, and start nailing these games, that’s all it is.
“[Taihape] are definitely a team that can just grind away, it’s not pretty but it’s winning games, and can’t do much about that.
“Maybe in that first 20 where we actually played some good structure for a while, but we couldn’t take points when we should have.
“It’s really frustrating, to be honest, especially when we can take some points and we don’t.”
Taihape 13 (G Hakaraia try; K Elers-Green 2 pen, con) bt Kaierau 12 (J Lalanabaravi, P Waqatabu tries; E Robinson con). HT: 7-7.
