Whalers impressive in sinking Aoraki in Southern Zone final
OTAGO left its best performance to last when winning the Southern Zone Championship in Timaru over the weekend.
It will now go on to play Northland in the national final on Saturday.
After going through the roundrobin section unbeaten, the Otago Whalers faced hometown side Aoraki in the final at Alpine Energy Stadium.
It was completely oneway traffic from Otago, as it ran out a comfortable 386 winner.
It led 246 at halftime and was never challenged by Aoraki which quickly ran out of steam.
Otago proved to be the best of the four sides at the championship.
It opened the weekend with a convincing 4218 win over West Coast.
It backed that up with a 2420 victory over Aoraki on Saturday afternoon.
Otago then put on a good performance to beat Southland 3512 yesterday norning after
Aoraki had defeated Southland 2420 in a key match on Saturday.
Otago went into the final with plenty of confidence and jumped out of the blocks when Jake Fowler scored the opening try after a typical blockbusting run.
Otago scored three more tries in the first half, winger Piliu Tavake getting on the end of a break down the right edge to score a classy try.
Big centre Sione Fa’aoso was rampaging at times and was difficult to stop with the ball in hand.
Aoraki offered little resistance and, although it had some ball in the second half, could not get across the line.
Otago coach Dave Reedy said the side put on its best performance of the weekend in the final.
He said the team was scratchy on Saturday but was better in all facets in the final.
‘‘We completed our sets throughout the game and our attack was a wee bit better.
‘‘We stiffened our defence in the game too,’’ he said.
Loose forward Cameron Brown was all over the park while Fowler brought some energy to the side yesterday after having to play two games on Saturday.
The side has lost the past three national finals at this level, going down to Wellington last year in a close match.
It lost out to Northland in the final two years ago after it drew the match but ending up being denied the title on countback as a result of a lower points percentage overall.