Rugby: No coach but Bay shows spirit aplenty

Mike Delany of Bay of Plenty breaks away during the Air New Zealand Cup match between Bay of Plenty and Wellington at Rotorua International Stadium. Photo / Getty Images

Air NZ Cup

Bay of Plenty 21
Wellington 17

There is merit to this strategy of dumping your coach on the eve of the championship. It has certainly worked for the Bay of Plenty, who far from being some broken rabble with no spirit, are quite a handy team.

A very handy team. Good enough to beat the favourites, the mighty Wellington who are full of talent and ambition. This was brave and deserved. Not only was there staunch work in the collision from the forwards, there was flair and enterprise from the backs.

As the All Blacks tear themselves apart looking for a back-up first five, they could do worse than watch the Bay's Mike Delany. He stamped his class on this game and nudged his side into all the right places and didn't flap once when he was under pressure.

And they were under plenty of pressure. Having run out to a 21-6 half-time lead - blowing a golden try-scoring opportunity close to the half-time hooter - they were clinging on for most of the second half. Their lead was being whittled back as the home side made the mistake of trying to defend their lead.

Also, it has to be said, that Wellington pulled finger and were a different team when they brought Fa'atonu Fili off the bench to play first five instead of Daniel Kirkpatrick. Fili can run and he tore the Bay apart on a couple of occasions as well as giving his side greater direction and more composure.

A try by Scott Fuglistaller from a charged-down kick closed the gap coming into the final quarter and the boot of Fili left things dangerously poised for the Bay at 21-17 with almost 10 minutes left.

The temptation was there to back the Wellington get-out-of-jail win but the Bay held firm defensively and whenever they could, they booted the ball long and asked their visitors to run from deep.

Wellington didn't have the necessary polish to pull that off on a wet night and they came up short and will have to look seriously at their first-half efforts.

Quite what Wellington were up to, only they will know. Even from the earliest exchanges their work was tinged with frustration. It looked like it was going to be one of those rotten off nights where anything and everything was going to go wrong.

Cory Aporo was allowed to slip past Robert Fruean and Charlie Ngatai a little easily and then hand off Tamati Ellison for the opening score. The lack of bite in the Wellington defence was strange, so too their inability to react to such an obvious wake-up call. The errors continued and they were dead-set on kicking possession away. Poor old Jamie Joseph, having endured a difficult week, must have sat aghast at the way the ball was booted downfield with no great aplomb.

The Bay were able to draw confidence as well as field position from this folly and their counter-attacking was sharp with some nice offloads and clever angles. The pressure told on Wellington who conceded penalties which the hugely under-rated Delany calmly slotted over from long range.

The critical surge made by the Bay came after half an hour and was put on a plate for them. Under no pressure inside his own half, Kirkpatrick took his eye off the ball in the process of launching an up and under. He ended up looking super unco-ordinated and the ball was hacked through.

David Smith then managed to look even more unco-ordinated than Kirkpatrick by doing the classic defensive slide only to push the ball over his own line with his knee. Thanks ever so much, said Aporo, who touched down for his second.

Even with the second half improvement, it was too far back for the Lions.

Bay of Plenty 21 (C. Aporo 2 tries; M. Delany con, 3 pens) Wellington 17 (S. Fuglistaller try; D. Kirkpatrick 2 pens; F. Fili 2 pens)