Solia runs riot as Raiders romp to title
THERE was no stopping Tofatuimoana Solia and the South Pacific Raiders.
The Raiders swept to a 5816 win over University in the Otago Rugby League final at Kensington Oval on Saturday.
Man mountain Solia played a gigantic role. He ran around, ran through, ran over and outran just about everybody in the University lineup at some point.
He scored five tries — yes, five.
The first one took all of about a minute.
Massive prop Champ Betham busted free and galloped down the left flank. He got the pass to Solia, who dotted down. That was probably the easiest of the five.
Remarkably, University scored from its first set as well through Chris Talauta. The score was 44 after just two minutes.
The traffic was pretty much oneway after that mad opening.
University got a strong hint it was not going to be its day when Mackenzie Haugh nabbed an intercept and ran 80m to score just before the break.
Haugh, by the way, was one of two players who had played rugby for the Southern Bush Pigs an hour or so earlier and helped beat the Karaka Razzlers 485 in the semifinal of the national club under85kg competition.
Jordan McEntee also played in the rugby game. Extraordinary stuff.
The Raiders’ 264 advantage grew in the second spell.
Solia added to his three tries with another couple. Anytime he got near the line, it was points in the bank.
University bagged a couple of consolation tries towards the end of the game.
The students were without veteran prop Ricki Allan, who was isolating with Covid. It would have been his 75th game for the team.
Half Troy Anstiss had a solid game for University and hooker Jayden Hollander was busy.
But the Raiders were at another level.
Coach Dave Reedy said victory felt good.
‘‘The last time we won the competition was in 2015, so it has been a while,’’ he said, adding the key was having a consistent squad all season.
‘‘The last couple of years, we’ve had to pull players in and we’ve been short. We’d even have mates coming along to play a game.
‘‘But this year we’ve had 22 to 24 players at every training, so there has been competition, so that always helped.’’
As for Solia’s performance, what can you say? He had a cracking game.
Betham and Israel Otunuku were menacing as well, and Haugh, McEntee and Tama Apineru were threatening in space.
Everyone chipped in at some stage.
‘‘Jordan McEntee has probably been close to the best player in the competition this year, and to have Macca [Haugh] available today was huge,’’ Reedy said.
‘‘Michael Strydom, our hooker, had his best game of the year. And Tama probably had his best game of the year too.’’
Great timing to have your best game.
The Otago Whalers begin their season against the West Coast next Saturday.
That team announcement is due this week. Expect plenty of Raiders to feature.