Auckland sweat for Ranfurly Shield
Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:59
Auckland secured a convincing 54-3 victory over a weaker Poverty Bay in Gisborne on Tuesday in defence of the Ranfurly Shield, though not without some resilient periods of play from the hosts.
The defending Air New Zealand (NZ) Cup champions and Shield holders ran in eight tries to defeat the amateurs of the Heartland Championship.
The home side's best spell came just after half-time when they held their visitors scoreless for the entire third quarter.
"There were a lot of basic errors [27 handling ones all told] and you've got to take your hat off to Poverty Bay who ripped into everything," Auckland skipper Nick White told rugbyheaven.co.nz.
Auckland coach Pat Lam also commended Poverty Bay's gutsy performance, sounding disappointed with certain aspects of Auckland's resounding win.
"It's been a great occasion. The Bay boys really stepped up and put us under some pressure. We just weren't accurate enough at the breakdown-continuity," said Lam.
Nonetheless, Auckland ran in five first half tries en route to a 35-3 half-time lead.
The Shield holders strung together too many handling errors for their coach's liking in the first half, but their execution prevailed as flyhalf Lachie Munro grabbed the first and last tries of the spell with a couple of sharp dabs from first receiver - whilst backs Mikaele Pesamino, Jarek Goebel and Ben Atiga also got in on the act.
Auckland then seemed to lose their momentum after half-time, taking them 23 minutes of the second spell to break the Poverty Bay defence for the first time as replacement back Mapa Tu'ipulotu finished a free-flowing move out wide.
After that burly flank Kurtis Haiu and No.8 Chris Lowrey also managed to cross the line to cap a fairly unimpressive effort from the Aucklanders.
There was much attention on the performance of Auckland openside Daniel Braid, as the No.7 continues to prove he's worthy of an All Black call-up for the Tri-Nations and Bledisloe Cup encounter against Australia in Sydney on July 26.
Braid did what was required though will know, like his team-mates, that he will have to lift his game several notches over coming weeks.
The Aucklanders take the Shield to Oamaru next where they will defend against North Otago.
The scorers:
For Auckland:
Tries: Munro 2, Pesamino, Goebel, Atiga, Tu'ipulotu, Haiu, Lowrey
Cons: Munro 5, Atiga 2
For Poverty Bay:
Pen: Leighton
The teams:
Auckland: 15 Chris Mahony, 14 Jarek Goebel, 13 Ben Atiga, 12 Winston Stanley, 11 Mikaela Pesamino, 10 Lachie Munro, 9 Taniela Moa, 8 Chris Lowrey, 7 Daniel Braid, 6 Kurtis Haiu, 5 Jay Williams, 4 Stanley Haukinima, 3 Charlie Faumuina, 2 Tom McCartney, 1 Nick White (captain).
Replacements: 16 Pauliasi Manu, 17 Paea Fa'anunu, 18 Dean Budd, 19 Peter Sai'ili, 20 Grayson Hart, 21 Mapa Tuipulotu.
Poverty Bay: TBC
