Rennie reflects on 'lost Shield'
Sat, 23 Aug 2008 11:35
Manawatu coach Dave Rennie has pinpointed his own team's inability to seize the moment as the main reason for having failed to launch a serious challenge to Auckland's reign as Ranfurly Shield holders.
Auckland won the battle for the Log o' Wood 25-3 and while many coaches would take aim at the match officials - considering the number of contentious calls in this encounter - Rennie was not looking for excuses.
"I will be honest, we are disappointed," Rennie told a media gathering at Eden Park.
"We talked all week about coming up and playing some footy.
"To win a Shield you have to be willing to be there to win I guess.
"We couldn't get our line-out going, so we couldn't get any structure from that. And when we did get the ball, we didn't treasure it.
"There were a couple of interesting calls, but in the end that wasn't the deciding factor. We just didn't play enough footy."
Among the calls that raised some eyebrows were the decision by referee Keith Brown to award a penalty try - on the advice of TMO Ben Skeen - who ruled that Manawatu wing Lote Raikabula had deliberately knocked the ball dead when a possible try-scoring opportunity was on for Auckland.
Skeen said a chasing Ben Atiga would have probably scored a try had Raikabula not hit the ball out, something which did not look as clear-cut on television replays.
Manawatu were also partly undone when prop Grant Polson was sin-binned by Brown.
Rennie also spoke of his team's lack of composure.
"I think the line-out was a big part of it," he said.
"We lost 10 all told, either lost or not straight.
"Our skills, they weren't accurate enough. And when we did get a bit of a sniff in the second half a couple of times we put the ball down.
"It just wasn't good enough."
