A rugby feast
The home season wraps with Mitre 10 Cup and Heartland Championship finals with an All Blacks test tossed into the mix. Meads Cup final to get the ball rolling. South Canterbury host Thames Valley after the Swamp Foxes, fourth after the round-robin, pulled off the upset of the season in beating Wanganui 17-7. At 4pm attention switches to Eden Park for the premiership final and the return to a classic Auckland-Canterbury stand-off. It ends tomorrow in Levin with a neighbourly clash between Horowhenua Kapiti and Wairarapa Bush for the Lochore Cup. Tonight all eyes are on Yokohama for just the sixth transtasman battle on neutral turf in 162 matches. The first was in 1991 at the Rugby World Cup in Dublin and won 16-6 by the Wallabies. Their other RWC meeting was at Twickers in 2015 and won 34-17 by the ABs. Their only previous meeting in Japan was in 2009, won 32-19 by NZ. They have played twice in Hong Kong with a win apiece. The three previous meetings in Asia have also been a fourth Bledisloe Cup fixture but all have been dead rubbers. Tonight’s meeting could have been live (as the third of three such games this season) but, again, the All Blacks have already locked the famous trophy away for the summer.
Mitre 10 Cup, today 4.05pm. Heartland Championship, today 1pm; tomorrow 2.30pm. Bledisloe Cup test, today 6.30pm.