Wellington physically dominate Cyclones

Wellington’s big boppers proved too much to handle for the Manawatu Cyclones at the Arena on Saturday.

The Cyclones spent most of the game defending against the bigger Wellington team and even though they came back in the second half to nearly draw level at the death, they lost 25-20.

Mistakes throughout the game cost Manawatu and co-captain Selica Winiata was disappointed they weren’t able to overhaul them at the end.

‘‘We knew Wellington were going to be a tough side,’’ she said. ‘‘They’ve got some big girls and got a bit of size, so we knew the physicality was going to be there.

‘‘We knew we had to front up and be just as physical to put a good performance out there today.’’

She said to keep Wellington to 15 points in the first half was good and they would have been a good chance to score at the end if they hadn’t lost the ball.

‘‘We were definitely in it. Just basic errors cost us at the end and Wellington capitalised on it.’’

She said they have to focus on beating Waikato next weekend in Hamilton.

Manawatu were down 15-0 at halftime going into the wind, conceding two tries, but their defence held out well enough considering Wellington were on attack for a lot of the half.

With the wind behind them in the second spell, Manawatu came back through tries to Lauren Balsillie and Sammy Mcintosh, closing the gap to 15-12, but then conceded two soft tries out wide.

Winiata scored and they kicked a penalty to get it back to 25-20, but they couldn’t find a way through the Wellington defence at the end of the game.

Manawatu struggled to contain’s big ball runners, particularly lock Sanita Levave with her rampaging runs, which kept them on the back foot.

The Cyclones were on the receiving end of the penalty count, and were unlucky to get pinged a couple of times in the scrum, despite having the dominant scrum all game.

Cyclones second five-eighth Shanna Porima was their standout player on attack and defence, while blindside Aroha Nuku was into everything and centre Janna Vaughan was dangerous on attack.

Hooker Rebekah Tufuga made an impact off the bench with her strong carries.

In other games, Counties Manukau beat Otago 58-10, Waikato beat Bay of Plenty 32-3 and Canterbury beat North Harbour 50-7.