Selectors urged to take notice
Bay of Islands 31 Whangarei 20: A dominating performance against the Whangarei senior reps at Kaikohe on Saturday saw the Bay of Islands retain the Harding Shield with a game in hand.
Whangarei scored first with an early penalty before the Bay began to pile on the pressure with some well worked combinations from the backline while a powerful scrum began to demolish the city visitors.
The second half saw Whangarei up the ante but the offensive was met with equal determination by a homeguard defence which refused to budge an inch.
The satisfaction of successfully shield defence was written all over the face of Okaihau's Shaun Haynes, who coached the side this year beside Ohaeawai's AJ Johnson, at the aftermatch.
"Our forwards really dominated them in the first half. We had a good bench, good depth," said Haynes.
The air of rivalry between the two sides - e.g. the poor country cousins taking on and beating the cosmopolitan city slickers - was also evident in the speech from captain Justin 'Juddy' Davies, when he accepted the shield. Davies noted he had been given stick from his Hikurangi teammates who called the Bay domestic competition, the Toyota Cup. He held the shield aloft and said: "This just sticks it up them right now!"
Haynes echoed Davies' defiant comments. "Always good to beat the townies. When it comes to playing those townies, the guys really want to smash them. They give us a lot of ribbing, so good job."
Standouts for the Bay included the try scorers: winger Maurice Cooper (from Moerewa, "pretty solid on attack"), Jack Ram (Kerikeri) and Quin Butler (Kaeo).
Also impressive and expected to be considered for the extended Northland training squad, were lock Buster Tahere (Mid Northern/ ex Kaikohe), No.8 Cam Goodhue (Kamo, ex Kawakawa), and Justin Davies (ex-Moerewa and apparently non-committal about re-signing with the Taniwha this year), and hooker Dylan 'Muscles' Horne (Mid Northern); and those with an outside chance of selection include Ohaeawai 2nd five Davion Young, and Kerikeri halfback Fred Tevita and fullback Ace Barlow. The big pictureThe shield victory suggested the Bay was the most powerful sub union in Northland but Haynes hesitated: "Take our front row - they went awesome. But how many front rowers have we got?"
It certainly was an assured team effort but one which even more remarkable considering the state of the domestic competition where horrendous walkovers of massive proportions are more commonplace than evenly matched games. How did the sub union put together such a competitive squad to defend the shield taken from Whangarei by force in a major upset at Toll Stadium last year?
Haynes had no answer, but he did hope the performances by his players on Saturday will force the Northland selectors to sit up and notice.
Well, it certainly forced them to backtrack on a heavily promoted promise to name the squad at the aftermatch which came across as a major cop-out. While Taniwha coach Adriaan Ferris remained unavailable for comment, Haynes said he also hoped all those who made an impression on Saturday would make themselves available if selected.
"The Bay fired a few shots in that department ... I think the Bay sub union would be prepared to help them out with fuel costs."
Looking ahead to a remaining round 3 Harding Shield game against Mangonui, vaguely scheduled sometime later this month meaning domestic comps will again be put on hold, Haynes said the Bay should play the fixture, even if it was unnecessary.
"Couple of young guys from Opononi I'd like to bring in [for the Mangonui game]."
Previous results in Harding Shield: Round 1 on Easter Monday, April 9, at Hikurangi: Whangarei 69 Mangonui 12, Bay of Islands 57 Rodney Northern Wairoa 12; Round 2 at Kaiwaka in May: Whangarei beat Northern Wairoa Rodney (score unadvised).