Otago motivated by injured teammate in decisive victory over struggling neighbour
THE five competition points claimed in Invercargill on Saturday has cemented Otago in the top four of the Mitre 10 Cup championship division.
The fact Otago extended its run to five straight victories over Southland and retained the Donald Stuart Memorial Trophy also prompted smiles.
But Otago coach Ben Herring said there was another motivating factor behind the 4324 victory at Rugby Park against The Highlanders prop badly historic rival Southland. damaged his knee in Otago’s
The motivation attached to victory over Northland a week the preparation centred ago, and Herring said it could around injured prop Aki well sideline him for a year. Seiuli. Seiuli presented the Otago players with their jerseys this week in what Herring said was an emotional moment.
Otago then went as far as taking one of his dreadlocks with them to Invercargill and pinning it up in the changing room as a reminder of just who they were playing for on Saturday.
‘‘He is a such a character in our environment, he is pretty special. It’s a shame for him, and it did serve as big motivation for us,’’ Herring said.
Otago racked up seven tries in the victory over Southland, with winger Mitchell Scott scoring three and Jona Nareki on the other wing scoring two.
It was a sixminute period between the 15th and 21st minute where Otago scored three tries to go up 190 which
was the most telling part of the game.
While the victory was never in any doubt and the fourtry bonuspoint was sorted inside the first half, it was not all celebration in the Otago camp soon after the final whistle.
That probably provides a glimpse as to just where Southland is at, but also the fact Otago feels it needs to get better to be a threat come the crunch stage of the season.
‘‘Scoring 43 points with a bonus point, we are delighted with that. But the critic in all of us means the feeling in changing room is, ‘we can be better’. The fact that that mood is there is good,’’ Herring said.
The midfield pairing of Sio Tomkinson and Matt Faddes had a field day against a Southland team which fell off too many tackles to be competitive.
‘‘I think Matty [Faddes] was itching to get a start again. He’s been on the bench for a couple of weeks so he showed how much he wanted to get back out there. I was really impressed by him.’’
No 8 Dylan Nel had another good outing, and Herring hoped Super Rugby coaches were taking a good look at him.
‘‘We’ve got some guys putting their hands up. Guys like Dylan Nel, he has certainly got to be impressing someone. He’s been one of our standouts at the moment. But I think we’ve got a lot of guys playing good footy. Kurt Hammer, Sione Misiloi, they are doing some good things.’’
The focus for Otago now switches to another local derby, this time against Canterbury in Dunedin on Saturday.
Otago’s propping depth could be tested even further after Donald Brighouse failed a head injury assessment against Southland and Hisa Sasagi limped from the field.
Nel also looked to have picked up a shoulder injury.
‘‘I don’t know how bad they are. We’ll just trust the depth of what we’ve got if we have to.’’
In other games over the weekend, Wellington beat CountiesManukau 5312, while yesterday, North Harbour downed Bay of Plenty 3230 and Auckland beat defending champion Canterbury 3429.