Tasman Makos on the brink of rugby history
The Tasman Makos are on the brink of a significant new chapter in their brief history as they attempt to win their first national provincial premiership rugby title in Christchurch next Saturday.
Tasman’s thrilling 41-29 semifinal win over Taranaki at New Plymouth’s Yarrow Stadium on Sunday means that they’ll now take on a powerful Canterbury side searching for a 13th national title.
Tasman will be playing their second premiership final in three seasons after losing to Taranaki in 2014.
Tasman head coach Leon MacDonald said that the Taranaki clash had been physically and emotionally draining for his players and that they’d have to prepare sensibly over the coming week.
‘‘Emotionally I think we’re all a little bit spent,’’ MacDonald said.
‘‘It was a big day and they had a big week and I thought the boys can be hugely proud of the way they played here against a really good Taranaki team.
‘‘We’ll treat [this week] like we did last week,’’ MacDonald said.
‘‘We’ll build up nicely...we had a bit of fun at the start of the week like we’ve done all year. We’ll add in the detail to the game we want to play as the week goes on and start building it up.
‘‘[The players] do have to come back down, [Taranaki has] been a physically and emotionally draining game and we’ve got to make sure we recover really well and enjoy it – then we’ll be ready to go again.’’
And forget about Tasman’s embarrassing 45-14 loss to Canterbury earlier this season. That was a different Tasman side still finding their feet – a far cry from the team now ready to make the biggest statement of its 11-year history.
However, there are injury concerns with several players having to leave the field against Taranaki.
‘‘The injury toll’s going to be up there, we’ve got a lot of guys that are sore and a six day turnaround. But I think, you know, it’s a final and Canterbury will be the same I’m sure.
‘‘But we’ll turn around and we’ll get fired up for Canterbury. We never not enjoy playing against them.’’
MacDonald said that they’d take plenty of confidence from Sunday’s performance.
‘‘The way that we controlled the ball and stayed really disciplined and patient and did the job in the end...it’s not the first time this year that we’ve really had to dig deep and finish the job and we’ll take a lot of confidence from that.
‘‘They’re a bloody good team Taranaki and they can strike from anywhere and they’re well coached, so we knew it was going to take a massive effort on defence and we managed to just hang in there to the end.’’
‘‘We lost a lot of players through injuries at the start of the season, so young guys have come in and they were always going to take a while to get to where we wanted them to be.’’
On the other side, there was anguish on the faces of the Taranaki players as their season came to an end.
‘‘Very, very disappointed,’’ Taranaki captain Mitchell Crosswell said.
‘‘The first half cost us. We were flat and we struggled to stay with them defensively because they move the ball really well.
‘‘I thought we came out well in the second half but we just came up short.’’
For Tasman, it’s all or nothing next Saturday.
‘‘It’s exciting, it’s against our old foe and we couldn’t have scripted it any better,’’ MacDonald said.