Southland’s long journey in search of a win
THE nature of the Mitre 10 Cup format does not offer up any favours.
The Southland Stags are in desperate need of a confidenceboosting victory. A win would do a lot for this team on many fronts.
Week after week, the Stags’ Mitre 10 Cup losing streak has been circled and paraded around for all to see. It stands at 16, and has been difficult to hide from.
That statistic needed to be quashed to help generate some
belief within the players — and Southland rugby in general, for that matter.
For some, maybe just a competitive performance might suffice at the moment.
A performance where Southland can at least take its opposition to the 80th minute.
But the challenge does not get much easier for the Stags. Tonight the men in maroon will take on a Northland team made up of many of New Zealand rugby’s unsung heroes — the likes of Kara Pryor, Matt Matich, and Matty Wright.
The showdown comes just five days after the Stags’ loss to Otago in Invercargill, and they have had the longest trip in New Zealand provincial rugby to factor into that short preparation time.
They have travelled to Whangarei, a place where Northland has won six of its past eight games.
To add to it all, Southland would be without one of their best tonight, in the form of flanker Phil Halder, who has a knee injury.
The odds are long, but again Southland has another oppor tunity to turn the encouraging patches it has shown this season into an 80minute performance.
Southland coach Dave Hewett said ball control and accuracy remained the key aspects that the Stags needed to sort out in search of that 80minute showing.
‘‘We need to hold on to the ball, those simple things. There were two or three times where we did a pop pass [against Otago], which we practise — but not under those circumstances, out in the mid part of the field rather than under the posts.
‘‘That is where we need to keep it tight.
‘‘It’s our skills under pressure and making sure we are making the right decisions. When the decisions are made it’s about executing them,’’ Hewett said.
The SouthlandNorthland rivalry dates back to 1947, and the two teams have met 39 times.
Interestingly, nothing separates them in the historical record.
Each has 19 wins, with the other fixture a draw.