Sudden death for college teams
At a glance
Nelson College and Waimea Combined Schools are now in sudden death mode as they approach their respective semifinal assignments in tomorrow’s UC Championship secondary schools rugby playoffs.
Both teams are in Christchurch, Nelson College taking on the Crusaders region schools competition’s top qualifiers Christchurch Boys High School in the top tier championship semifinals and Waimea facing fifth-placed St Andrew’s College in the second tier plate playoffs.
Nelson ended the regular season in fourth place after last weekend’s gut-wrenching 43-42 loss to St Andrew’s while Waimea finished eighth.
Both suffered regular season losses to Saturday’s respective opponents.
A last-minute penalty success by Christchurch’s substitute fiveeighth Alex Harford resulted in a 13-11 win over Nelson in round nine while in round 10, St Andrew’s scored six tries to two in a more comfortable 40-12 win over Waimea.
Nelson head coach Warren Johnston was at a loss to explain his team’s second half capitulation against St Andrew’s after Nelson had led 35-14 at halftime.
‘‘We still played some good football in the second half but I think we knocked St Andrew’s into gear, they played really well in that second half,’’ Johnston said.
‘‘Just a few dropped balls and a few penalties didn’t go our way, stuff like that ... unfortunate really.’’
However, it doesn’t alter the team’s mindset ahead of Saturday’s semifinal. They’re heading south again with plenty of confidence, despite the unavailability of in-form No 8 Brad Pool who will be in Sydney watching the Bledisloe Cup test.
‘‘We’re pretty confident. We’ve watched the video of last time ... and we’ll just change a few things in our play and our approach.
‘‘The biggest thing is just our concentration levels in the middle stages of the second half. In the last few weeks we’ve been lapsing there a little bit so that’s the main focus for this week, just to make sure we concentrate for the whole 70 [minutes].
‘‘We had a pretty good run [Tuesday] and had a massive chat about concentration levels and sticking to the game plan and when messages come out, we have to make sure we take those messages on board.’’
Meanwhile, Waimea co-coach Glen Thompson was reading little into their previous result against St Andrew’s where he felt the lopsided scoreline didn’t truly reflect an otherwise solid Waimea team performance.
‘‘Funnily enough, we actually played a really good game that day,’’ Thompson said.
‘‘They got an intercept, a charge-down and we made more line breaks than them by far. They were just more clinical in finishing off what they did.’’
Still, he was fully aware of the massive challenge ahead of them.
‘‘It’s going to be a really tough game and I guess when you go into these semifinals, you can’t leave the field wondering what could have been. So we have the attitude of going down there and just throwing everything at it.
‘‘We’ll be playing an up-tempo game, because that’s our style, and we’ll be looking to disrupt them with a few extra things we’ve brought into training this week.
‘‘It’s just a matter of having the right mindset as well.
‘‘We’ve told the boys it’s as much about the mindset as it is about the physicality side of things, so if we go in with the right attitude, then anything can happen. We’re really looking forward to it.’’