Steelers delight at first victory

By RICHARD BOOCK

Counties Manukau 14 Otago 11

Former Counties coach Barry Bracewell always reckoned that his team played best when the spring sun was shining, and the Steelers lived up to that reputation at the weekend.

After four weekends of rain and mud, Counties-Manukau celebrated clear skies at Pukekohe on Saturday by staging what at one stage seemed to be the biggest upset of the fifth round - a hard-fought victory over previously unbeaten Otago.

As it happened, Southland later stole the show with a scarcely believable win in Wellington, but the partying still continued long and hard in Steelers' country, where the supporters had been anxiously awaiting their first win of the season.

The victory, arriving after a week of rumours concerning the future of the coach and chief executive, was built on traditional Counties' strengths - some hard-nosed forward play, a willingness to use the three-quarters, and a lethal counter-attacking plan which stunned Otago with two length-of-the-field tries.

The first came after a break from Casey Laulala, and involved a couple of brilliant touches from Loki Crichton before Niva Tu'uaso touched down. The second featured some creative work down the short side from Laulala, Blair Feeney and the eventual try-scorer, Wayne McEntee.

Both came after Otago turned over the ball as they rampaged deep inside Counties' territory, and propelled the hosts to a shock 14-3 lead at halftime.

The Steelers then managed to cope with a desperate fightback from the southerners and a bewildering refereeing performance from Paul McFie - who somehow managed to spot just one Otago infringement in the second half while dishing out 10 the other way.

Otago could not convert the huge advantage effectively, adding just a Tony Brown try and a Brendan Laney penalty during a ragged and fumbling effort.

Probably the biggest blow came when they lost rampant No 8 Paul Miller after 11 minutes with an ankle injury.

But they still won most of the possession and had enough of an edge in the loose to have kept their unbeaten record intact.

Counties coach Andrew Talaimanu said it had been a tough few weeks for everyone involved with the side, as indicated by the outbreak of back-stabbing around Pukekohe.

"There have been so many knives flying around I was thinking of opening up a hardware store," he said yesterday.

"We've been under siege, but the guys came through against Otago and showed a huge amount of heart. I was absolutely rapt with our scrum and lineout.

"We had a long night out after that one, I can tell you - it was good that the players had something to celebrate, they deserved that after such a tough start to the season."