There is no point if you don’t score the points
THE lesson was there for all to see.
No matter how pretty things look at times, no matter how much endeavour and grit is put out, the key to the game is scoring points.
And how does a team score points?
It takes its chances. On Saturday at Forsyth Barr Stadium, Canterbury gobbled up every chance that came along.
On the other hand, Otago was wasteful and inaccurate when the opportunities arrived.
Hence the scoreline of 4725 to Canterbury, a seven try to three win for the red and blacks, who led 2613 at the break.
Otago showed some nice skills and plenty of dash in the backs, but it could not get across the whitewash often enough.
Otago coach Ben Herring conceded it was a harsh lesson for his side to learn.
‘‘Credit to Canterbury. They showed how you finish. All those cliches you can bring out about Canterbury were there — clinical, the machine. They snuffed everything out,’’ he said.
‘‘We just couldn’t make it work and they were just a good example of what we have to do.’’
Herring said the side was naturally disappointed.
‘‘But I’m super proud of the boys and they came together and were pumped the whole game. It was just details around stuff that was the issue.
‘‘We were satisfied at halftime and said ‘should we look to push passes or go conservative?’ So we said let’s push it. We need a couple of tidyup areas. In that 22m zone we were not quite there.
‘‘When you are playing against those guys you need to be ruthless in the execution of stuff . . . the heart was the there, intention and guts, all that stuff. We had the foot on the accelerator but we just could not put it on the floor.’’
Otago made plenty of line breaks and got in behind the Canterbury defence. But the
red and blacks scrambled well and Otago lacked polish in key moments on attack.
It got back to 1413, 25 minutes into the first half and launched a long range attack which should have ended in a try. But Canterbury managed to stave off the attack and then went down and scored a try from a lineout.
Otago was just six points behind 15 minutes into the second half, but a couple of quick tries from the visitor killed the contest off.
Otago tried to score a fourth try at the end, but its night was summed up when replacement halfback Melani Matavao made a nice break only to be stopped 5m from the line and coughed the ball up.
Best for Otago was lock Tom Rowe and flanker Slade McDowall, while out back, midfield back Sio Tomkinson and winger Jona Nareki — in his blazer game — played well.
Tomkinson scored a couple of penalty goals when Ioane was off for a head injury assessment in the first half.
In other games over the weekend, North Harbour beat Hawke’s Bay 5134, and Auckland beat Taranaki 3130.
Yesterday, Tasman held on to pip CountiesManukau 2119 and Wellington thrashed Manawatu 497.