Losers, bus trips and balls-ups At a glance
into Auckland’s healthy resource of talent and they finished top of the Premiership with a 9-1 record, earning hosting rights for the final against Canterbury.
Southland break wrong records
Southland’s slide to an embarrassing losing record and a second successive winless year looked all too likely from the opening round.
A further 10 defeats in 2018 means that the Stags have now lost 21 matches in a row, breaking Northland’s 19-match losing streak (set from 2014-16) for consecutive losses suffered in provincial rugby’s top competition. Southland’s last win was against Northland (39-31) on October 8, 2016. They were well beaten in most matches during a dreadful campaign that finished with them bottom of the Championship for the third season in a row.
All aboard for bus trips
Rugby teams can tap into some valuable bonding time when travelling long hours on the road. Well, some provincial sides were certainly exposed to that in 2018.
Stuff revealed that New Zealand Rugby this year increased the threshold for bus travel in the Mitre 10 Cup from four hours or less up to six hours or less, saving a ‘‘significant amount’’ of money on air travel.
Five teams were impacted and among them were Canterbury, who travelled about 362km via road for an away fixture against Otago in Dunedin.
Not one but two walks of shame
The only red cards brandished this season remarkably came in one match when Taranaki’s Jarrad Hoeata and Canterbury’s Daniel Lienert-Brown were dismissed for ugly incidents in Christchurch.
Hoeata has always been feisty but crossed the line when landing a right first on Tom Christie’s face in the sixth minute following an unsavoury melee.
Replacement prop Lienert-Brown was given his marching orders for administering a headbutt on Ricky Riccitelli. For the record, Canterbury won 41-7 and Hoeata and LienertBrown were later given five-match bans.
Balls of steel
Ranfurly Shield in 2018:
July 28: Taranaki 78 Poverty Bay 0 in Tikorangi.
August 4: Taranaki 33 Wanganui 10 in Hawera. August 24: Taranaki 41 Manawatu 21 in New Plymouth.
September 10: Taranaki 19 Waikato 33 in New Plymouth.
September 14: Waikato 44 Hawke’s Bay 22 in Hamilton.
September 29: Waikato 42 Southland 11 in Hamilton.
October 13: Waikato 19 Otago 23 in Hamilton.
Two tales from Hamilton: one of a Wellington prop swinging low and another of an Otago winger perhaps left singing high.
Wellington’s Tolu Fahamokioa wasn’t overly fond of Jordan Manihera’s clumsy knee connecting with his head, so he aimed a punch from the ground up between the Waikato No 8’s legs – missing – and Manihera took exception, swinging a fist before both players were sinbinned. Then, during Otago’s Ranfurly Shield heist in Waikato Jona Nareki suffered a ‘‘smashed testicle’’ in the second half but he bravely returned for the final two minutes with the gruesome injury that required surgery the following morning. ‘‘It was just a direct blow on the bullseye,’’ said Otago coach Ben Herring. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.