The ‘harsh truths’ Wellington had to confront before NPC quarter-final

Wellington may have finished in top spot on the National Provincial Championship standings, but the Lions still have a point to prove this coming Friday. Two weeks after they met in the regular season, the Wellingtonians will host Counties Manukau in the NPC quarter-finals.

In one of the upsets of the season, Wellington were beaten by a mammoth score in Pukekohe. AJ Alatimu broke the deadlock with a penalty goal in the 12^th minute, and that’s when the floodgates opened for Counties during a one-sided first half.

Kauvaka Kaivelata, Alatimu and Ian Wester-Stevens all crossed for a try each as the hosts ran away to a 24-nil half-time lead. They continued to pile on the points after the break, with a barrage of tries seeing the underdogs take a 48-nil advantage.

Peter Umaga-Jensen and Jeremiah Avei-Collins scored tries for Wellington inside the final 10 minutes as they avoided a shutout loss in the regular season fixture. That ended up being one of their two losses in the round-robin, with the Lions falling to Tasman a fortnight earlier.

In the lead-up to the NPC playoffs, Wellington playmaker Jackson Garden-Bachop was asked about the challenge that awaits the Lions at Sky Stadium. The Lions took “some harsh truths” from that 51-12 loss, but the team are ready to embrace a chance to claim some revenge.

“The team’s feeling really good. We’re pretty excited to get another crack at Counties after… what happened a couple of weeks ago,” Garden-Bachop said on SENZ’s The Run Home with Kirst & Beav.

“We played well against Hawkes Bay, we’re happy with that game so hopefully we can build on that going into Friday night.

“There were some harsh truths that we had to face around some of our effort and intent areas which we sort of pride ourselves on so we took a good look at that,” he added.

“In terms of our actual game and how we want to play the game, it was pretty easy to dump because we didn’t really get to do anything that we wanted to do.

“There were some good things that we looked at and took from it but we moved on pretty quickly.”

Wellington have been boosted by the return of some marquee players, with 14 All Blacks being released to play for their respective provinces in the playoffs. The Lions have a highly-rated quartet returning, including veteran halfback TJ Perenara.

Ruben Love, Asafo Aumua and Billy Proctor are also available to suit up for the Lions in the first of four NPC quarter-finals. As for Counties, they’ll have Cam Roigard among their ranks as they plan to break Wellington's hearts for a second time.

“It is a blessing that we’ve got a lot of good players that can come back from higher honours but it doesn’t matter on the day if we don’t play well,” Garden-Bachop explained.

“We had a stacked team two weeks ago against Counties and we got dusted, so we need to make sure we turn up regardless of who’s wearing the jersey.”