Season sliding away from Turbos
Manawatu¯ ’s season horribilis has Turbos fans wondering where the next win is coming from.
After their weak 49-19 loss to Northland at Whangarei on Friday, don your buckets, because they host Tasman on Wednesday, Wellington on Sunday and then are away to Bay of Plenty at Rotorua.
After the respectable 34-23 loss to Canterbury, they immediately regressed against Northland.
Despite having repaired the scrum, which imploded against Taranaki, and the lineout, which slumped against Canterbury, this time the defence melted down.
It was a typical old Manawatu¯ slam dunk away from home against a rabid, hungry Northland.
Of minor consolation, the Turbos weren’t alone with Hawke’s Bay overrun by the fast improving Waikato (Manawatu¯ ’s sole victim so far), Tasman posting 53 against an equally timid Taranaki at Nelson, Counties Manukau being pumped by 41 and the All Blacks losing.
Only a win, somehow against Tasman, will silence the tom toms beating around Manawatu¯ .
Since 2015, three or four wins have been the norm per season. That will take some matching from this team and crowd attendances will take a hit.
In pre-season, the Turbos leaked soft tries and those defeats were an indicator of tough times ahead.
They have the second-poorest defensive record of all 14 teams, aside from winless Southland. In five games Manawatu¯ have leaked 38.5 points a game. At Whangarei, for the third time this campaign, they scored three tries to again dip out on a bonus point.
Even with five games to go, the semifinals look remote. The Turbos haven’t achieved that since 2014, when Jason O’halloran credited current coach Jeremy Cotter for turning around the forwards.
They might now lack depth, appear under-powered and some are exhausted, missing Jackson Hemopo, Tom Parsons and Heiden Bedwell-curtis, but they had shown fight at Christchurch.
In conceding seven tries, Friday’s loss was worse than the Otago abomination because then the Turbos were in the bout until the final half hour.
At O¯ kara Park they were in the game for 16 minutes until a shocker kick started the rot, Northland scoring three tries in six minutes. Earlier, Lifemi Mafi’s slick shift had put wing James Tofa over four minutes in.
At one stage the Turbos were on track to concede 77 as Dave Rennie’s team did in the 2010 calamity, spooked by Northland’s line speed.
On Wednesday, the coaches will be forced to rest knackered players. Lock Liam Halla meames will come back (from suspension), so should Otere Black, who will hopefully fix the kicking, Jamie Booth (again the running threat), Hamish Northcott and new flanker Adrian Wyrill.
Northland had won just one game and yet Manawatu¯ made them look like worldbeaters, two rogue video ref decisions aside. All the hairy, scruffy Taniwha did was fix bayonets and charge as if through Mussolini’s shellshocked conscripts.
Manawatu¯ must enjoy tackling, because they don’t treasure possession, awful kicks inviting Northland to stampede upfield and score seven tries at will. The halfbacks may be lacking protection, but are so slow to clear opponents simply counter-ruck them off the ball and the backs get it under heat. Centre Rob Thompson could barely get a pass or grubber kick away.
It is too easy to score against the goal-line defence and the left defence was so exposed wing Jordan Hyland was given free gallops.
Cotter led a testy review the following morning and they and the players believe it can be fixed.
‘‘Northland wanted it a hell of a lot more than we did,’’ he said.
‘‘The frustrating thing for the players, and us, is that stuff we practised at training completely went out the window.’’