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Counties Manukau will retain the coveted Ranfurly Shield until next year after surviving a tense finish to beat Hawke’s Bay 12-7 in the National Provincial Championship, despite not scoring a single point after 27 minutes.
Captain Jimmy Tupou led the Steelers to victory in their Shield challenge last weekend as they upset Northland 22-19. With one round remaining in the 10-week regular season, Districts had a chance to lock up the Log o’ Wood for the offseason.
Hawke’s Bay started the NPC season with a perfect 6-0 record, which included some big wins against Wellington, Tasman, Auckland and Manawatu. But a three-game losing streak since then has the Magpies keen to bounce back ahead of the play-offs.
Counties struck first at the Navigation Holme Stadium as outside back Adam Brash stood in for the opener in the 10th.th minutes. It didn’t take long for the Steelers to get back into scoring position, with a series of penalties awarded in favor of the hosts.
The Magpies still managed to hold on, at least for a while, as their defensive wall continued to stand tall despite waves of relentless pressure. But there was something inevitable about the Steelers at that stage, with AJ Alatimu getting the chance to score more points.
Alatimu missed the conversion after a Brash try and the former five-eighth also missed his second shot at the posts. The score remained 5-0, before Melani Matavao crossed for five in the 26th.th minutes, which was converted.
At halftime it was 12-0 in favor of the County, but the home team did not score any more points until the end of the game. One-Test Wallaby Darby Lancaster scored around 60 minutes, with Harry Godfrey adding the extras.
Hawke’s Bay trailed by just five points with less than 20 behind and the visitors had their chances for more. It was a 10-run thriller that went down to the wire, with the Magpies looking to steal it late on.
Godfrey headed over for a corner after Hawke’s Bay were awarded a penalty and the forwards lined up about 10 meters from the County line. But the home side played a game-defining defensive set-piece as they held on for a tough score.
“I don’t think we could have won that game in a better way,” Tupou said after the game Sky Sports NZ.
“We’ve been talking for the last few weeks about just making our people proud and obviously we made everyone proud last week, but we knew we had a pretty great opportunity to bring everyone together today.
“Some of those defensive sets, I’m so proud.”
Counties finished the season with four wins from their last six matches, but it was not enough to secure the Ranfurly Shield holders a place in the play-offs. Hawke’s Bay will play in the finals this month, ending the regular season with a 6-4 record.
