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Watch: Wellington to play BOP in Mitre 10 Championship final
By Jamie Wall
Wellington and Bay of Plenty booked themselves places in next Friday night's Mitre 10 Cup Championship final, recording comfortable victories over Northland and Otago respectively.
The men from the capital prevailed after a slow start at Westpac Stadium, which saw Northland shoot out to a 14-3 lead through tries to Jordan Hyland and Solomon Alaimalo. However, long periods of possession in the first half meant they were able to claw back the lead by halftime with a try to impressive youngster Thomas Umaga-Jensen and some accurate goal kicking by Jackson Garden-Bachop.
Unfortunately for Northland, the second half was one way traffic as the home team hit their straps. Trent Renata, Tolu Fahamokioa and Regan Verney all scored as well as a double to birthday boy Wes Goosen to take the game out of reach, all Northland could manage in reply was a try to Sam Nock.
Bay of Plenty didn't disappoint a packed Tauranga Domain, beating Otago 48-31 in windy conditions. Otago looked to have stayed in touch to trail 15-11 just before the break, however a try to Lalakai Foketi pushed the hosts out to a decent lead right on the hooter.
It was Foketi's second of the match, and Joe Webber matched his effort with a brilliant try in the second half. Tries to big Henry Stowers and Terrence Hepetema literally broke the back of the visitors, and a penalty try on the last play of the game pushed the score out even further.
However, Otago did provide a fair share of excitement in the match - All Black Sevens star Vilimoni Koroi's second half try one of the best you'll see this year.
Wellington will go into the final as heavy favourites, not only having home ground advantage but also having scored a bonus point try in the last 18 matches they've played.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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