Southland 6
Tasman 3
The axe will almost certainly be dropped on Tasman's national championship existence on Thursday but on this evidence Southland should probably be given the boot too.
The Stags may be pushing for a top-four spot but in a week when the NZRU revealed the southern-most
union ranked third-to-bottom on the criteria that was used to decide which two teams should be dropped from the competition, they certainly played down to that billing.
As far as rugby games go, this one must rate among the least entertaining ever played.
Tasman were competent enough until they got within spitting distance of the Stags' 22. There they suffered from some bizarre tryline phobia.
As for Southland, they hardly even bothered to play at all.
Their niggling, cynical approach looked likely to cost them when lock Daniel Ramsay was sent to the sin binin the 61st minute with the score locked at 3-3, but Tasman were unable to make any profit from their numerical advantage.
First five-eighths Miah Nikora missed with two kickable penalties and the Makos were made to pay when Blair Stewart kicked the winning points from straight in front.
Stewart opened the scoring with a booming first-half penalty from near the halfway line and Nikora levelled 11 minutes into the second half.
Other than that, the only occurrence of note was Southland's replacement hooker Jason Rutledge getting over the line from a neat lineout move only for the try to be correctly ruled out for a forward pass.
Tasman huffed and puffed and dominated territory and possession but lacked the composure to turn their ascendancy into points. Time and again they closed on the Southland goal line only to throw a 50-50 pass and have the move break down.
Neither team deserved to win but a draw wouldn't have been a fitting result either. In what must be a rare occurrence, both sides actually deserved to lose.
