Red-hot favourites for finals
Anyone not picking Wellington and Canterbury this weekend?
Tasman enthusiasts might think anything’s possible, after seeing their team go to New Plymouth and beat top-qualifiers Taranaki 30-29 in Saturday night’s semifinal. But, after losing 43-27 to Canterbury in last year’s decider and being flogged 39-0 earlier this season, surely even the proudest Mako would admit that beating the red-and-blacks this week us unlikely.
As admirable as Tasman were at Yarrow Stadium, Taranaki were hugely disappointing and Canterbury’s pedigree suggests they won’t contribute to their own demise in similar fashion.
Which leaves us with Wellington hosting Bay of Plenty, in Friday’s battle for promotion to the premiership. History says the Lions will gag and gift the Steamers an undeserved victory. That record of Wellington underachievement is about all the Bay will have going for them on this occasion. Three of the four semifinals, that got us to this point, were contests, with Wellington’s 41-29 win over Northland being the exception.
North Harbour deserve enormous credit for what they’ve done this year. It wasn’t so long ago that they could barely win a game in the championship, but they’ve followed last year’s promotion with a very good campaign in the big boys’ competition.
After getting back to trail just 25-24, with 11 minutes remaining in Saturday’s final, Harbour must’ve fancied they’d go on and win. Instead, centre Tim Bateman scored off a George Bridge break,
before Brett Cameron kicked Canterbury to their eventual 35-24 margin.
Some might’ve assumed Canterbury were a spent force this year, after surrendering the Ranfurly Shield to Taranaki. But old
hands such as Bateman know what it’s like to lose this Shield and still kick on to win that season’s title.
Tasman are no easybeats, as Taranaki can attest. Few would’ve backed the fourth-placed Makos to win in New Plymouth, but they just hung in and hung in and punished Taranaki for their errors.
It wasn’t always pretty and there were a couple of occasions where Tasman weren’t clinical and gave Taranaki the chance to steal the match but, in the end, the right team won. Taranaki had the talent, but weren’t accurate or patient enough and their performance was a lesson for Canterbury and Wellington about what not to do when you’re the favoured side.
The Lions were very much that in their semifinal against Northland and eventually showed why. The Taniwha brought toughness, but not a lot else, and once Wellington were able to match that, their superior quality shone through.
In Tauranga, Bay of Plenty ended up with a deserved 48-32 win over Otago, having briefly given the visitors a sniff during the final 20 minutes.