Mustangs, Stallions vie for finals berth

ATTACKING THREAT: Stuart Leach, one of the Paikea Whalers’ best players, is tackled by the Manutuke Mustangs’ defence on Saturday. The Paikea Whalers won the game 54-24 and are through to the Gisborne Tairawhiti rugby league final. Picture by Paul Rickard

The Paikea Whalers don’t yet know who will face them in the Gisborne Tairawhiti rugby league final but they expect their opponents to put up a strong fight.

The Manutuke Mustangs and Waengapu Stallions will play off on Saturday for the right to take on the Whalers the following weekend for the title.

Either side poses significant threats — the Stallions are a young side in good form, while the Mustangs do not always play conventional rugby league but they’re bursting with talent.

The Whalers — the 2018 champions — earned direct entry into the final by defeating the Mustangs 54-24 at Awapuni on Saturday.

The Mustangs, however, were missing some key players and they were short of numbers on their substitutes bench.

They face a sudden-death encounter this week against the Stallions, who showed last week they have what it takes to handle such occasions when they ended the season of the Central Falcons, beating them 38-30.

Daniel Taituha, one of the Whalers’ player-coaches, said they started well against the Mustangs but faded towards the end of the first half.

He put that down to “silly errors, impatience and ill discipline”.

“But we managed to pull ourselves out of a rut and finished strongly.”

Taituha said the Mustangs put them under pressure.

“If they make the final and bring their full strength line-up, they will be hard to beat.”

Chris Brown, another player-coach for the Whalers, said the game got a bit scrappy.

He said he had no preference for who they play in the final, but any of the teams still in the competition were good enough to win it.

The Mustangs showed they were a team that could put points on the scoreboard, he said.

Brown and Taituha are also both due to miss the final.

Mustangs captain Shayde Skudder said the Whalers were well structured and they had his team on the back foot on Saturday.

He was happy for his team to mix things up, and it sometimes paid off.

That was well illustrated just after halftime when the Mustangs produced a horrible set of six but still came away with points through a cross-field kick that Willis Tamatea scored a try from.

Skudder said it wasn’t a bad thing that the Mustangs had to play again this week, rather than having a break.

In their knockout semifinal against the Falcons, the Stallions got out to a 14-0 lead.

They pushed that out to 20-6 but the Falcons closed the gap to 26-24.

The Falcons then took the lead, going ahead 30-26, before a strong finish by the Stallions, who answered with a try and put the icing on their win with another try right on fulltime.

Stallions coach Jay Casey said his team started well but the Falcons never gave in.

Captain Dylan Williams said his team were young, fit, strong and willing to learn.

The Falcons gave them “a hell of a game”.

The game was on a knife edge with five minutes left to play but he didn’t doubt they could get the job done.

This Saturday’s game between the Mustangs and Stallions is due to kick off at Awapuni Stadium at 2.30pm.